‘Your own marriage brought you great estates, Richard, did it not?’ Edward replied.
‘A marriage to a young woman, to produce my two beautiful daughters. As you have done, Edward. This loveless joining of Norfolk and Woodville is too obvious, too cruel. It will cause only unrest.’
In less than a year at court, the new queen had given birth to a daughter, Elizabeth of York as she was known. Edward’s wife was already pregnant again, as fertile as a young mare. Warwick had agreed to be the first child’s godfather, believing the offer to be an olive branch between them. Yet at the baptism, the queen had leaned over to him and murmured that she longed for a dozen fine boys with the king. Her amusement at his expression had soured the day and troubled him ever since.
The worst of it was that the Nevilles had done much the same during his grandfather’s time, placing a dozen brothers and sisters into the noble families of England. Warwick had thought the marriage to the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk might be a point of weakness, but the expression on Edward’s face showed he was mistaken. Warwick realized the young king was utterly smitten, made blind and deaf by his wife’s skirts. There was true anger on Edward’s face as he sensed criticism of Elizabeth. Warwick had not seen him so enraged since Edward had stood in other men’s blood at Towton, five years before. He could not help shuddering at the sense of violence in the giant staring at him.
‘You have brought me your concerns, Richard,’ Edward said. ‘You are my counsellor and it was no more than your duty. I will consider them, but you should know I believe John Woodville is a fine man. He wears a hair shirt under his silks, did you know that? I saw it when he stripped to bathe in a river while we were hunting. His skin is like raw meat and he makes no complaint. He is a fine hand with a pack of dogs – and he is my wife’s brother. She wishes to raise him up. It pleases me to please her.’
Anthony Woodville was returning at last, having cut the last of the arrows from the woodwork with his knife. He was striding up the gallery, straining to hear the end of the conversation. Warwick took a step back and bowed rather than give the man the satisfaction. That said, he supposed his words would be repeated from Edward’s lips to Elizabeth that evening. He could hardly ask that they be kept private from the king’s own wife. He waited for Edward to release him and walked away, feeling Woodville eyes on his back as he went.
25
Thirty horses had to be walked out one by one from their stalls in the foetid hold. It took time, and as he waited, Warwick stood frowning on the docks at Calais. The quays themselves were of dressed stone and iron blocks, but the walkways were of planking, stretching away to the warehouses and taverns along the front, all crushed together with never enough space. He had memories both good and bad of the port fortress. It had once been the gateway to English Normandy, the place where anything could be bought and sold, from apes and ivory to lavender and rubies and wool. King Henry’s weakness had put paid to all that.
The port was about as noisy and stank just as strongly as he remembered. A dozen ships rocked at anchor outside the sheltered waters, all waiting for the harbourmaster’s skiff to row across, their captains shouting insults to one another. No one could enter Calais without that permission, not with the cannon pointed out to sea to smash them to flinders. Gulls called in high voices overhead, swooping down to squabble over any smear of scales or fish guts.
On the long quays, eight merchant crews were heaving bales and barrels out of their holds as fast as they could, doing their best to distract and confound the English port tallymen who tried to keep track of taxes owed and a bewildering array of custom stamps, forged or real. Fishing boats bobbed in between and around them, the French boatmasters holding up good examples of their catch. Warwick remembered the life and the cackle of the place, though it had taken on a twitching, feverish energy since his younger years. It had been just one port in thirty then, with all the coasts and two-thirds of France thriving under English control. He shook his head in sadness.
Calais was still worth thousands a year to the Crown, in taxes and profits both – and not one cloth yard, not one iron nail or haddock passing through, was strictly legal, not between two countries that had never declared a formal peace. Men on both sides had thrived in the uncertainty, using Calais as the entry point to all of France and Burgundy, even down to Sicily and North Africa, with enough bribes paid.
Warwick watched a wooden crate of oranges being yanked open, his gaze drawn to the splash of colour on the whitened wooden docks. The English merchant peering at them suddenly speared his thumb deep into the core of one, then licked the grease, nodding. Fruit in winter, from lands much further to the south where lemons and oranges still grew. Sugar from Cyprus or the Levant, even suits of armour from Italy, where a master smith might demand fortunes for his work. Warwick owned such a set himself, measured to his frame so that it fitted him perfectly and had saved his life more than once.
Warwick whistled and the merchant looked up, his suspicion clearing when he saw the earl’s surcoat crest. Warwick waited while the man’s servant ran up with three large oranges, for which Warwick tossed him a silver penny. Calais was still a place where fortunes were made, for those who had the eye to see it. Yet she was not what she had been.
The last of the horses were unloaded and saddled, and his men formed into a neat phalanx of armour and horseflesh to pass through the port. Warwick waved an arm and turned his mount away from the sea, heading along the main street to the walls that enclosed everything in the port town. They loomed over everyone alive inside, a constant reminder that this was a port in a hostile land, with walls twelve feet thick, to withstand a siege. King Edward paid for hundreds of men to keep those walls, often with wives and children who had never seen England. Calais was its own little world, with alleys and shops and smiths and thieves and fallen women whose husbands had died of disease or been drowned.
Warwick rode to the inner gate and presented his papers with the seal of King Edward to the captain there. At his back, thirty men in armour kept their talk small, sensing the earl was in a darkening mood. The only one who could not stop gazing around in amazement and happiness was George, Duke of Clarence. For the young man, the docks were spiced with exotic flavours and smells, entrancing every sense. As the gate opened, Warwick tossed him an orange and he caught it with a grin, pressing the strange fruit to his nose and breathing in.
The sight of George of Clarence so full of life went some way to ease Warwick’s gloom. Calais was the stepping stone across the Channel to a continent, he knew that. It was also a poor place to land if your destination was Paris, as his was. Far better to take a ship to Honfleur, even though it was no longer an English-held port.
As Warwick felt his horse stretch out into a canter, he let the animal have its head, after being confined and blinkered in a stinking hold. Horses could not vomit and a sea crossing sometimes meant they suffered terribly, growing sicker and sicker but unable to empty their stomachs. It did them good to have a run, and the road ahead cleared quickly at the sight of horsemen thundering down it.
He heard Clarence give a whoop as the king’s brother came abreast of him. Warwick leaned forward over his horse’s neck, easing into a gallop, caught up in the pleasure of speed and danger. A fall might kill them, but the air was cold and sweet, filled with the promise of spring in the green verges.
Warwick found he was chuckling as he rode, almost gasping. He had been confined for too long as well, with two, almost three years of watching Woodvilles promoted to every position and post that carried a salary in England and Wales. It was pleasant to leave that behind him, in all senses.
He was old enough to remember when an English lord sailed to Honfleur and upriver to Rouen, then took a smaller boat along the Seine to the heart of Paris. Yet their fine warhorses could not be taken in fragile riverboats. It was true he would arrive with dust and sweat and grime clinging to every inch of him. He and his men would need another day to find rooms and bathe. Yet perhaps h
e would feel refreshed even so. He heard Clarence laughing as they clattered along a good road at a reckless speed.
Warwick looked back at the young man. Clarence resembled his older brother in some ways, though he had not grown as tall and was infinitely more amiable. As one who had watched Edward become a man, Warwick had been wary of another son of York at first, accepting his presence reluctantly. He supposed Edward’s brother was always likely to report the most interesting events back to the king and queen. With the young Richard at Middleham, Warwick could never completely escape the sense of their eyes on him. Yet George of Clarence had an open face, without any guile or suspicious looks. It was with a twinge of sadness that Warwick realized he liked all the York sons. If it had not been for Elizabeth Woodville, he thought the Plantagenets and the Nevilles could have made an unbreakable bond.
On lesser mounts, they might have exchanged them at post-houses on the Paris road, one hundred and sixty miles from the coast. Like the most ancient roads in England, it was a clear, wide surface in good, Roman stone, running across what had once been the edge of Caesar’s Gaul. Merchants thronged its length, but dragged their carts and families sharply off the road when they saw Warwick’s knights flying.
Before the first morning ended, Warwick had twice been stopped by French captains, each time sent on his way as soon as he had presented his papers, all counter-sealed by King Louis’s Master of the Household in Paris. The soldiers had become remarkably polite and helpful after that, recommending the best places to rest on their route to the capital. Warwick and his men found taverns before sunset and if most of them had to sleep among the horses in the stables, or wedged under the eaves of an attic, it was not such a hardship.
On the fourth night, Warwick and Clarence had taken a table set with olives, bread and a flask of wine strong enough to make their heads swim. The owners appeared delighted to have English lords in their house, though Warwick had still sent one of his men to watch the food being prepared. He had the excuse of avoiding poison, but the truth was his man was a skilled cook and loved to learn new flavours, asking about every spice and powder and insisting on a taste. By the time he returned to England, Warwick knew he would have a dozen new dishes of French country fare to enjoy.
They sat by a fire in an iron grate, enjoying an evening without the clank of armour as both men had come down from their rooms in simple jerkin and hose. As the first course came to an end and they wiped their fingers, Warwick raised a cup to the young man, wishing him good fortune in everything he did. He found Clarence surprisingly good company, not at all garrulous for one so young, but given to comfortable silences. Warwick’s toast prompted another and Clarence obliged, his face already bright with drink.
‘And to you, my brother’s great friend. And to my brother Edward, first man in England!’ he said.
The strong wine was affecting the younger man and he slurred the words. Warwick chuckled and sank his cup, refilling it from the flask before the tavern maid could do more than take a step in his direction. She stood back, blushing, with her hands clasped at her waist. She was not used to English appetites or manners. The first platter of two small chickens in fennel and mushrooms had been reduced to bones in no time at all, barely interrupting the two men’s conversation.
‘Edward has made a fine match, of course,’ George said suddenly. He was staring into the fire and did not see the way Warwick’s expression tightened. ‘With two daughters born, though I do not doubt there will be a boy or two to come! Elizabeth is pregnant for a third time, so I will pray it is a son and heir. Yet, I … well, I am …’
Warwick looked sharply at him and the young man flickered a glance in his direction. Such a deep colour appeared on his cheeks that it looked as if he was choking. The young duke was clearly nervous and sweating more than the heat of the small fire might have justified.
‘I … ah … I asked to accompany you to Paris in part because I have not seen the city itself and I thought it would be a fine journey, with new sights, and perhaps I might discover a book or two to offer as a g-gift …’
Warwick looked at him in alarm. The peaceful silence of their past few days had vanished. He began to wonder if George of Clarence would have an apoplexy, so much was he shaking and spluttering.
‘Have a drink, George. Here, the joint has arrived! Allow me to slice it for you. Perhaps you will broach whatever it is that has you in such a fine froth.’
Warwick set about carving the pork haunch delivered to the table, placing slices on the wooden platters in front of them. He took his own knife and cut pieces he could spear as he talked, then refilled both cups of wine yet again. No doubt it would be a late start the following day, but the thought did not disturb him unduly. Some nights could not be better spent than in wine and good company.
George, Duke of Clarence, chewed miserably, his mouth stuffed too full even to attempt to talk. He wrestled with a strip of the finest crackling he had ever tasted, wrenching it back and forth until he thought it would never give way, then swallowing manfully. The meat seemed to settle his swimming senses enough to speak again, forcing himself to rush through the words before his heart exploded in his chest.
‘I had thought to ask you, sir, my lord, for the hand of your daughter Isabel, in marriage.’
It had been said. The young man sagged in his chair and upended his cup of wine while Warwick gaped at him, his mind working. It was a better match than he could have hoped for – especially with Woodville men and women claiming every title in the country as soon as they came free.
‘Have you mentioned your desire to my daughter?’ he asked.
George spluttered through his wine and stammered his reply.
‘I have not told her of desire, sir! I would not presume, until I had spoken to her father. Until our wedding night, my lord, sir!’
‘Take a breath,’ Warwick said. ‘And now another. There. I meant your desire to marry, nothing more. Have you … I don’t know, talked of love with Isabel? If so, I am a little surprised you could get more than a word past that babbling stream.’
‘I have spoken three times to her, my lord, in chaste company. Twice in London and once at your estate in Middleham, last summer.’
‘Yes, I remember,’ Warwick said, summoning some vague recollection of seeing his then sixteen-year-old daughter talking to a sweating boy. He wondered if George, Duke of Clarence, was interested in his daughter for her beauty or for the lands she would inherit. Warwick had no sons and whoever married Isabel would eventually become the richest man in England, inheriting the vast estates of Warwick and Salisbury both. Isabel might have been married already if not for the extraordinary dominance of the Woodvilles as she reached marriageable age.
Warwick frowned, looking with fresh eyes at an eighteen-year-old duke who might become his son-in-law. It was one thing to consider George as a half-decent brother of the king, quite another to think of him as the father of Warwick’s grandchildren. He saw a deep nervousness, but also some courage as the young man met his gaze and held it, instinctively understanding the scrutiny.
‘I know you will want to think about my offer, sir. I will not mention it again, now that I have brought it to you. Only this, my lord. I do love her, on my honour. Isabel is a wonderful girl. When I have made her smile, I want to laugh or weep for the joy of it.’
Warwick held up his hand.
‘Let me digest the news, with this fine meal. I think I would like another flask of this red wine, to settle my stomach.’ He saw the young man swallow and look pale and decided not to press him. Instead, he yawned. ‘Or perhaps I will sleep and rise early. We have a long day on the road ahead – and Paris the day after. We’ll need to be sharp.’
‘Will I have your answer by then, my lord?’ George asked, his eyes desperate.
‘Yes, you will,’ Warwick replied. He had no desire to torture the young man. His instincts were all in favour, not least because his wife would not have dreamed of their daughter marrying a duke. It was n
o small thing that the marriage would infuriate Elizabeth Woodville as well, though that would remain a private pleasure.
The thought stopped him as he rose from table.
‘You know, even if I am willing to entertain your suit, the king will still have to grant his permission, as he must for all marriages between noble families.’
‘How fortunate, then, that King Edward is my brother,’ George said, smiling, ‘who would grant me anything in his power.’
The young man’s enthusiasm was infectious and Warwick smiled along with him. George of Clarence was still a man unmade, on the path to what he would be. Even so, Warwick found himself hoping the king’s brother would be successful.
Charing Cross was a rough crossroads lying between the houses of Parliament and the walls of the city of London, further along the river. On the bend of the Thames, it was best known for the huge cross erected by the first King Edward, on the death of his wife. Though it had been a hundred and eighty years, the cross remained as a landmark to one man’s sorrow and loss.
Edward bowed his head and raised his hand to touch the polished marble. He could see the mark where a thousand others had patted it for luck, and he said a prayer for a long-dead queen. Perhaps it had more weight coming from one who shared old Longshanks’s height and name and blood. Edward felt close to the king men had called the Hammer of the Scots.
Beyond the cross and the turning circle, the wide road stretched away west to Chelsea, the great coach stop and stables, where travellers could bathe and eat before heading out into the wilds. The river was close by and Edward could smell the bitter green taint of it, opening up his lungs. He cleared his throat, settling his dislike of thick mud and all the damp and desolation around him – as well as the task ahead.
It had to be done. Elizabeth had opened his eyes to the influence of the Neville family on the English court, how they had insinuated themselves into every nook and cranny. It was astonishing how often lucrative posts were held by unremarkable men and women, who just happened to have Neville parents or grandparents. Elizabeth described it as ‘the rot’, though she had been intrigued by how it had been accomplished.