“Come, walk with me, cher ami. I wish to speak with you.”
“When Madame commands, it is my pleasure to serve,” he said with studied gallantry. But his smile was wary; he was sure he knew what she would say.
Her first words, however, were not of her son and flight to France, as he’d feared. “So, tell me, my lord…what did you find to discuss with Warwick’s daughter? Did you dry her pretty brown eyes and assure her that her father was a knight sans peur et sans reproche?”
He was silent, and she gave him a speculative sideways glance.
“How easy you are to read, Monsieur mon chevalier!” she said, with mockery but no malice. “You think we’ve ill treated the girl, do you not?”
“No, Madame,” he said, with so little conviction that she made a wry face, laughed at him.
“What a poor liar you are!” But her mood abruptly altered, sobered almost at once.
“Granted, my son is none too fond of the Neville girl, but she has given him no reason to care. She did not want to marry him, went to her marriage bed like one condemned to the gallows. Can you truly blame Édouard for feeling little tenderness for a wife who did not want him and cared not at all who knew it?”
“No,” he conceded, “I think not. Was she so devoted to the Yorkist cause, then, as that? Queer that a lass of fifteen should be more steadfast than the Kingmaker himself!”
She shrugged. “Who is to say? But I did not seek you out to speak of Anne Neville. The girl doesn’t matter now; she’s of no use to us without Warwick.”
She stopped on the path, turned to face him.
“Somerset, I am so afraid.”
He was at a loss; her raw, wrenching candor was embarrassing, did not accord with his memories. The Marguerite d’Anjou he remembered had feared no man walking God’s earth.
“You must trust in Almighty God, Madame. You must have faith in His mercy and divine wisdom.”
She stared at him, and then she laughed, a hollow hurting sound. “It is not God’s judgment I fear,” she said, very low. “It is Edward of York’s.”
His pride was affronted; he’d seen considerable service with the army of Charles of Burgundy and felt himself to be a battle commander fully as capable as Edward of York.
“A dead man passes no judgments, Madame,” he said coolly. “I do believe before God the Father and Christ the Son that when we face York across a battlefield, the victory shall go to Lancaster.”
“S’il plaît à Dieu,” she murmured. She reached down, picked a flower from the hedge bordering the walkway, began to pluck the petals, scattering them on the path at her feet.
“It is only that I cannot forget…. He was just seventeen, too.”
“Who, Madame?”
She reached for another flower before saying reluctantly, “Edmund, Earl of Rutland.”
He drew a quick breath. “Madame, forgive me for speaking so bluntly, but I find that a most disturbing remark, in truth I do. Last night you did tell Prince Edward that York sees Sandal Castle as a blood debt. Is that how you, too, see it, Madame? The life of your son for that of Edmund of Rutland? For God pity us if you do! This I can tell you for certes, Madame…. That if a man goes into battle expecting to lose, he damned well will!”
He saw, with some surprise, that her hands were shaking. The second flower, shorn of petals, joined the first on the path. She looked down at it, said, “You do not understand, Somerset.”
“No, Madame, I do not. Rutland was no schoolboy, no lamb led to the slaughter. He was a belted Earl, fully seventeen, and I daresay he bloodied his sword that day on more than a few men of Lancaster. Had he been slain on the field, I’d have had no qualms at all about his death. He was of an age. Believe me, Madame, I know…. I was not yet seventeen myself at the first battle of St Albans and a sword neither knows nor cares the age of its wielder.”
“He had no sword on Wakefield Bridge,” she said, and he nodded slowly.
“Aye, and that’s the heart of it, isn’t it? It was not his death but the way of it that did give me trouble. There is no honor in stabbing an unarmed prisoner. I don’t doubt my brother Harry would’ve stopped it had he been on the bridge when Clifford drew that dagger. However much Harry hated York, he’d never have countenanced a murder of that sort. Nor could I. No more than you would have done, Madame. It was Clifford’s doing and only his. And for you to take his guilt upon yourself at this late date is a penance not called for, Madame. It makes no sense.”
She was shaking her head. “You still do not understand, Somerset. I do not regret Rutland’s death, not in the way you think. I never did, if you want the truth of it. It was war. I did not think the less of Clifford for what he’d done. That Rutland was dead mattered more to me than how the deed was done. The only regret I did have was that his brother Edward had not been there, too, on Wakefield Green. Jésus et Marie, if only he had! Do you never think of that, Somerset? I do. For the past ten years, I’ve thought of little else.
“Have I shocked you, cher ami? You must forgive me if I cannot share your belief in the worth of ‘honor.’ You see, Edmund, that was a luxury I could never afford. I was a woman with a husband who was as mad as any of those poor wretches walled up within Bedlam…. Yes, just for once, let us say it aloud, speak the unspeakable. My husband, Henri the King, was mad. And who was there to speak for my son, to defend his birthright? None but me. So don’t talk to me of honor, Somerset. And don’t judge me, either.”
It was an extraordinary outburst, like nothing he’d ever heard from her. The tremor afflicting her hands had at the last crept into her voice; he had never seen her like this, not in all the years he’d known her.
“I do not judge you, Madame,” he said softly. “You are my Queen.”
She caught his hand between her own, clinging tightly enough to hurt. “Help me, then. Help me to persuade Édouard that we must return to France.”
“I cannot do that, Madame,” he said sadly and braced himself for the brunt of her fury.
It never came. She let his hand drop. “No, I didn’t truly think you would,” she said calmly, but it was the composure born of utter exhaustion, and he was troubled rather than relieved by her abrupt capitulation.
Not knowing if he’d be rebuffed or not, he put his arm around her shoulders. She came at once into his arms, and they stood for some moments in the sun, drawing upon that special comfort to be found in the embrace of old and intimate friends who’ve shared between them a lifetime of griefs.
“Madame, I still do not understand what does bother you so about Rutland’s death. Why now, after all these years?”
She gave a sound much like a sigh, and finally said, her voice muffled against his shoulder, “Because it is only now that I realize…”
“Realize what, Madame?”
“How very young seventeen is.”
She raised her face to his. “You will help him, Edmund? No matter what does happen, you’ll be with us? Swear you will…for Édouard, for your Prince.”
“Ah, Madame, need you even ask?”
He’d thought that Anne Neville’s wide-set brown eyes were like those of a startled fawn, wary but without guile. But the dark eyes of Marguerite d’Anjou were strikingly different, were all that remained of a once breathtaking beauty, reminded him of the lush purple plums that flourished in her native Anjou, eyes that once promised the world in their wine-dark depths.
When he’d been twenty, she’d been twenty-eight and so fair to look upon that he’d known men willing to pledge their lives for her smile. He knew his father had loved her; he’d once been half in love with her himself; so, he suspected, had his brother Harry. He did not know if she had ever strayed from her marital bed, as the Yorkists so often alleged. He preferred not to know.
He smiled at her now, a smile of reassurance, a pledge of faith, and he was aware of an elusive undefined regret. She was forty-one and years of civil war and exile had taken more than her youth. She was thin where once she’d been feather-
light, willow-slim. Skin that once glowed was sallow, her forehead was etched with the evidence of her unquiet past, and the hands that rested against his chest were raw-boned, pinched, and starkly veined, in constant edgy motion. Only the eyes were as he remembered them, night-black velvet and quicksilver flashes of light, shadowed by charcoal lashes of startling sweep and thickness.
Looking down into those eyes now, he found it within himself to be patient with her fears, her forebodings, and with patience came, too, a fierce protective tenderness.
“Chère Madame, you must take heart. For us, for England…and above all, for your son, whose destiny is to be King.”
“Mais oui,” she whispered. “He does believe that, Somerset.” There was pride and pain in her face; her smile was a ghostly grimace of laughter.
“I taught him well, you see,” she said.
29
Cerne Abbey
April 1471
Isabel stood in the middle of her bedchamber, looking at the open coffers on the floor. The packing was all but completed. Only the farewells were left to be said.
She’d already sent one of her ladies to find Anne. She looked ahead to this last meeting with little enthusiasm; it was bound to be painful. With her departure, Anne would be truly alone. She wondered what would happen to her sister now. If only Anne had been more clever, more foresighted. If only she hadn’t deliberately and needlessly squandered any influence she might have had with Édouard. It was too late now, of course. She’d alienated him so thoroughly that he no longer even bothered to mask his contempt, his dislike.
There’d been a time when Isabel had been incensed with Anne for that, for making an enemy of the one person whose goodwill was crucial to them all. But now she felt only regret, only a dulled edge of pity for her sister’s predicament. Even if she did think some of Anne’s troubles were of her own making, there was no denying the troubles were real enough.
The door opened suddenly; Anne came in. She seemed out of breath, as if she feared she’d not be in time, and Isabel felt an unexpected conscience pang, wondering if Anne had truly imagined she might leave without bidding her farewell. She moved toward the younger girl, touching cheeks in a brief self-conscious embrace, for the first time within memory regretting that she and her sister were not closer, were, in so many ways, no more than familiar strangers.
“Are you all right?” she asked hesitantly, was relieved when Anne nodded.
“I shall miss you, Bella.”
Isabel’s eyes suddenly were blurred with tears. Bella was a name from their childhood, had been coined because her little sister could not pronounce Isabel. The name had stuck; many people still called her Bella to this day, including both George and Richard. Anne, though, had long since abandoned it, and this abrupt lapse back to Bella told Isabel a great deal about her sister’s emotional state.
“I shall miss you, too,” she confided shakily, and this time their embrace was warm, clinging, touched with despair.
“Bella, I have a favor to ask of you. You do know Véronique de Crécy, the young Frenchwoman who accompanied us from Amboise?”
Isabel fumbled to match the name with a face, found it with a flicker of remembered dislike. “Véronique? Of course, why?”
“Véronique offered to come with me to England, to continue to serve me as she’d done since last August at Amboise. I shouldn’t have permitted it, but I was selfish, I needed her friendship. And now…Bella, take her with you. For me, please.”
“But Anne, if she goes with me, you’ll have no one,” Isabel protested.
“It would be worse if she stayed.” Anne’s face was grave and too pale, but unmarked by tears. “She has already given up so much for my sake. At least I can see that she loses no more. With you, she’ll be safe.”
“If that is truly your wish, Anne, of course I will. But are you so certain that York will win?”
“If our father could not defeat Ned, I very much doubt that he can. Yes, I do believe York will win.”
“But you still cannot be sure. Lancaster does have seasoned battle captains, men such as the Duke of Somerset. And much can happen in a battle. So why not keep Véronique with you? At least there’d be one here you could trust.”
Anne didn’t answer at once. Instead, she bent over one of Isabel’s open coffers, tucked inside a sable-trimmed mantle, and closed the lid. Straightening, she gave Isabel a level look.
“Even if Lancaster should win, Bella, I could do nothing for Véronique. Not now, not after Barnet. You don’t truly think he means to keep me as his wife any longer than need be? Must I remind you that we received no papal dispensation for our marriage? It came from the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and how difficult do you think it would be to challenge the validity of the marriage on those grounds alone? I would be convent-caged within a month of a Lancastrian victory and divorced before the year was out and we both do know it.”
Isabel did know it, knew there was never difficulty in finding grounds to dissolve an unwanted marriage, to put aside an unloved wife. Not if the man was powerful enough, if the woman had no powerful relatives of her own to petition the Pope on her behalf. Anne had spoken the truth.
She looked at her sister, marveling that Anne could speak so dispassionately of her own future, especially such a future as she envisioned. It occurred to her now that she could not remember ever hearing Anne call her husband by his given name. It was invariably “he” and occasionally “Lancaster,” but never “Édouard.”
She sat down abruptly on the coffer Anne had just closed. “I hate to leave you here, Anne…with them.”
Anne leaned over, kissed her cheek. “I’ll be all right, Bella.”
“No…No, you will not. But there is nothing I can do about it.” She suddenly slammed her fist down on the trunk lid. “Damn them,” she said fiercely. “Oh, damn them all!”
Anne gave her a wan smile. “Who, Bella? Lancaster or York?”
After a pause, Isabel smiled, too, albeit bleakly. “I’m not as partisan as you, Sister…. Both!”
She knew she should not be tarrying here like this. There was nothing she could do for Anne and she faced a long tiring journey…to be reunited with the husband who had betrayed her.
“As little as I want to stay here, I shrink from reaching London,” she confessed. “I’ve known for a long time now that George comes first with George, but this…How could he do it, Anne? How could he?”
Anne bit her lip, shook her head wordlessly.
“And fool that I was, when I was told of Barnet, my first thoughts were for his safety! When he never did give a care for mine!”
“I’m sorry, Bella…so very sorry.”
“Sweet Jesú only knows how long he’d planned it. Perhaps even before Ned left Burgundy. We can be damned sure it wasn’t brotherly love that moved him! Oh, he’s fond enough of Dickon, I suppose. But Ned? George loves Ned as an infidel loves the True Cross! Or Cain loved Abel. No, he thought it out well beforehand, long and hard. And yet he couldn’t be bothered to warn me, to send me word. No, he let me find out from the very ones he betrayed! Anne, how can I face him after that? How can I forgive him?”
Anne was staring at her, open-mouthed. “I couldn’t say,” she said, so stiffly that Isabel looked up sharply at the change in tone.
“What is it?” she demanded. “Why do you of a sudden sound as if you’d quaffed soured milk?”
Anne hesitated, but her restraint was short-lived. “I do not understand you, Isabel. How can you see George’s failure to warn you as a greater betrayal than his abandonment of our father?”
Isabel flushed, and then her temper flared like dry kindling. “And I suppose you’re laying all the blame for our father’s death upon George!”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But that’s what you meant. You’ve never liked George, we both know that. You’d be more than willing to blame him, if that way you could avoid blaming Dickon and Ned!”
“It was George who did betray our
father’s trust. George, not Richard or Ned!” Anne responded, with no less passion.
Isabel was too angry to puzzle over the emotion that now drove her, perversely, to come to George’s defense when she herself had been damning him but moments before. She was aware only of a burning sense of outrage that Anne should so unfairly burden her husband with so heavy a guilt.
“What a hypocrite you be, Anne! What if George had held fast for our father? That doesn’t mean the outcome of Barnet would have been any different. And even if it did, are you trying to tell me you’d have welcomed a Yorkist defeat? Been glad if Dickon and Ned lay dead instead of our father? Go on, Anne, tell me how glad you’d have been!” she jeered, and then her anger was gone, lay sodden and heavy within her at sight of her sister’s stricken face. She looked away, struggling with an unwelcome sense of shame. There was no sport in hurting Anne; it was too easy.
“Ah, Anne, why must we always quarrel? Even now, of all times….” She sighed, decided it was up to her to overlook Anne’s obstinacy. There was, she knew, a very real possibility that she might not see Anne again.
She rose, patted Anne forgivingly. “I would as soon depart without having to see Madame the Queen,” she said sarcastically. “But I should say farewell to Édouard. He was rather decent last night, after all….”
Anne shrugged. “As you wish,” she said indifferently, but her mouth had tightened, and something dark and brooding showed in her eyes.
“I saw her in the west walk of the cloisters with the Duke of Somerset. I do not know where he is, though.” She looked at Isabel. “He might even still be abed,” she said, with sudden venom. “I expect he was awake most of the night, celebrating the news of our father’s death.”
Isabel was moved again to pity, which submerged the last of her irritation.
“You will be all right, Anne?” She’d meant it as reassurance, but it came out in the form of a question.
“You needn’t worry about me, Bella. I’m not important enough for them to bother with, not now. I’ll be all right…truly.”