Stormbird

  ‘If the westerly holds, I’ll get you there, my lord. Twelve hours, no more.’

  ‘Twelve!’ Warwick said, loud enough to make his wife and Clarence look up questioningly. He dropped his voice, leaning in very close. ‘The child could be here by then.’

  The sailor shook his head in regret.

  ‘At our best speed, we are as fast as anything afloat, but I cannot put on more sail than she can bear. Twelve hours would be a fine run, my lord – and that’s if the wind blows steady. If I can better it, I will.’

  ‘Are we going back to land, Richard?’ Warwick’s wife called. ‘Isabel needs a safe, warm place.’

  ‘There is none, not in England, not now, not with the king’s hand turned against us!’ Warwick snapped, overcome with the demands on him. ‘We will sail for Calais.’

  The steering oar was pressed hard over and the sails flapped as the prow swung, until they bellied out once more on to the new tack.

  Warwick took a turn steering, feeling the life in the craft as it strained under his hand. Isabel’s cries had grown more pitiful with every passing hour, the effort of the contractions exhausting her. There was no longer any doubt as to what they were. The baby was coming and the green coast of France loomed ahead. The crew had been busy for the entire day, tightening ropes and adjusting the twin sails by the tiniest fraction to gain a little more speed. They cast nervous glances at the red-faced young woman as they passed, having never seen anything like it.

  Ahead of him, Warwick saw the dark mass he knew as well as his own estates. Indeed, Calais had been his home for years before, when King Edward had been just a boy. He could look over the fortress and the town with something like nostalgia. The day had remained clear and the Channel had narrowed as they’d headed back up the coast from Southampton, so that he could see the white cliffs of Dover on one side, with France and freedom on the other. Every passing moment took him closer to safety and yet further from everything he loved and valued.

  He was shaken from his reverie by his daughter as she cried out, the sound sharper than before and longer. The sailors did their best not to stare, but there was nowhere truly private on that open boat. Isabel sat on the boards with her legs apart, panting and holding her mother’s hand on one side and her husband’s on the other. She was mortally afraid.

  ‘It will not be long now,’ Warwick said. ‘Get in as close as you dare and drop anchor. Put my banner up high on the mast, so we are not delayed.’

  ‘There is no deep keel on this craft, my lord,’ the Cornishman replied. ‘I could take her all the way in to the quays.’

  Warwick looked across the crowded waters in desperation. Beyond them, the fortress rose in stone walls. He knew the exact number and weight of cannon shot they could fire. The fortress could not be besieged from the land side, because they could be supplied from the sea. They could not be attacked from the sea, because of the great cannon. Calais was the best-fortified English possession in the world and any craft daring to scorn her defences would be smashed into firewood. Even so, he considered it, wondering if he could shelter their approach behind other vessels and then dart for the docks before anyone guessed their intention.

  ‘See those wisps of smoke?’ he said bitterly. ‘They have iron shot, heated to dull red in braziers, ready to be heaved out with tongs and dropped down the barrel on to a wet plug. They can strike a mile out to sea, and whatever they strike burns. We must wait for the harbourmaster.’

  As he spoke, one of the crewmen hoisted his colours. The wind was growing stronger and the banner snapped out as the waves began to crown with white. The yacht rocked and dipped, snubbing the small anchor and wrenching at them all. Warwick held on to a rope that was like a piece of iron and stood on the railing, waving one arm back and forth to the shore to convey the urgency. Behind him, Isabel wept and cried out, biting her lip until blood showed and her cheeks were speckled with broken spots under the skin.

  ‘The child is coming, Richard!’ his wife called. ‘Can’t you land? Sweet Jesus and Mary preserve us. Can’t you take us in?’

  ‘They are coming out! Hold fast, Isabel. The master can signal the fortress guns and the wind is still in the right quarter. I’ll call for a doctor to attend you …’

  He turned to give new orders to the crew, but they were ready to cut the anchor rope and drop the sails once more. It would be crude work, but they were ready for his signal.

  The yacht gave a great lurch and the wind howled, rising every moment and sending spray across them all. Dark clouds went scudding overhead and Isabel screamed. Warwick looked down to see his daughter’s bare legs splayed wide. He caught a glimpse of the baby’s head crowning and swallowed. His wife had given up all pretence of privacy and knelt on the boards, shivering in the sea spray, but determined and ready to take the tiny scrap of life into her hands.

  Warwick watched the harbourmaster’s boat making its slow way towards him. He imagined they could hear Isabel’s cries, though they seemed in no hurry at all. Surely the sounds would carry across the water. They seemed so piercing to Warwick’s ear that he thought the entire garrison would know there was a child being born.

  When the harbourmaster’s boat came within hailing distance, Warwick roared at the top of his lungs. He pointed up to the bear and staff at the tip of the mast, then called through cupped hands for a doctor to attend a birth. It was done and he sagged, panting and seeing white spots flash before his eyes from the effort. The wind was gusting like a mad thing, sending the ropes shivering and the tethered yacht surging up and down in great lurches, so that the horizon seemed to plunge and rise sickeningly.

  Warwick started in confusion as the harbourmaster’s skiff kept coming, with no sign of a signal flag raised to the watchers in the fortress. He shouted again, pointing and waving, while the little boat came on under a scrap of sail, great sheets of salt water breaking over her prow. Warwick could see a man standing just as he was, holding on to a rope and swinging dangerously as he gestured in turn. The wind had risen still further and Warwick could not make out all the words. Rather than wait, he called again for a doctor, saying over and over that he was Warwick and there was a child being born. In the midst of his fury, he heard a high wail, stuttering and shrill. The wind dropped for a moment, fluky and gusting. He looked back and saw one of the sailors standing abashed, holding out a horn-handled knife for Isabel’s mother to cut the cord and throw the caul into the sea.

  Warwick stood swaying, his mouth open and his mind blank. There was blood on the deck, spreading with the spray that hammered at them, so that it ran into the cracks of the old wood and raced down the planks. Isabel had been covered up again under blankets. He watched as Anne pushed the tiny child under Isabel’s shirt, not to feed, but just to feel the warmth and get out of the biting wind and damp air.

  ‘A girl, Richard!’ his wife called back. ‘A daughter!’

  It was a moment of wonder and when he turned once more to the port, he saw the harbourmaster’s skiff had come dangerously close. There were only four men on board and he recognized the fellow who had welcomed Clarence and Isabel once before, when they had come to be married. The man had been all smiles and gentle laughter then. In the cold, his stare was hard.

  Warwick called to him even so, now that they were close enough to speak over the wind.

  ‘A child has been born, sir. I will need a doctor to tend my daughter. And an inn with a good fire and hot mulled wine as well.’

  ‘I’m sorry, my lord. I have orders from the new Captain of Calais, Sir Anthony Woodville. You may not land, my lord. If it were up to me, I would allow it, but my orders were sealed by King Edward. I cannot go against them.’

  ‘Where would you have me land?’ Warwick demanded in despair. Wherever he turned, it seemed the queen’s brother had been there before him. Warwick was close enough to see the Calais man hunch his shoulders at the pain in his voice. He filled his lungs and howled again across the waves and spray. ‘Listen to me! We have a child born o
n deck not minutes past, my grandchild! No, King Edward’s niece! Born at sea – your orders be damned, sir! We are coming in. Cut that damned anchor!’

  His sailors sliced the line and the yacht turned immediately, going from a bobbing piece of flotsam on an anchor rope to a live thing the instant it parted. Warwick could see the harbourmaster gesturing, waving him off, but he nodded to his men and they heaved out enough sail to give them steering way. The yacht’s motion steadied as she sliced through the waters.

  A double crack sounded from the dark mass of the fortress on the shore, for all the world like a crow crouched over a corpse. Warwick could not see the flight of the heated shot, but he saw where they fell. Both smacked into the sea around them, aimed no doubt when they had made such a fine target at anchor. He knew the cannon crews practised on anchored boats bought as hulks. He had overseen such work himself.

  The second ball came close enough to make Anne shriek and Clarence clutch his pale wife to him in fear. The ball missed the yacht but they could hear a furious bubbling as it gave up its heat. Around them came a strong smell of hot iron, rising from the depths.

  ‘Richard!’ his wife called. ‘Take us away, please! They will not let us land. We cannot force our way to the dock. Please!’

  Warwick stared out, knowing the next shots could smash the yacht to pieces and kill everyone on board. He could still not believe they had fired upon him, with his banner on the mast. His men were waiting on his word, their eyes wild. He raised his hand and they moved, the yacht swinging round and the sails going slack. It might have saved them as the cannon sounded again, the report cracking across the sea. The dull red balls fell short, with plumes of steam hissing upwards while Warwick’s crew heaved them back and the yacht steadied once more.

  ‘What course, my lord?’ the Cornish sailor called.

  Warwick walked the length of the boat, looking back as Calais began to dwindle behind them.

  ‘It seems there is no loyalty left in England now,’ he said bitterly. ‘Follow the coast to Honfleur and then the river into Paris. I believe I have one or two friends there who might aid us in our hour of need.’

  He started as Isabel gave a wail, a sound of such pain that was as much the moan of a wounded animal as anything he had heard before. Warwick crossed to her and saw how she had opened her blouse to see the tiny babe within. It was unmoving, the wrinkled skin faintly blue. Isabel had felt the coldness grow against her skin and now she tried to feed her breast into a mouth that was still. She put her head back and shrieked out her grief until George of Clarence pressed her into his shoulder and held both the mother and his dead daughter, tears wracking him in great heaves.

  Epilogue

  Warwick could smell the city of Paris as he waited in the corridor. Unlike the Palace of Westminster, built along the river from London so that it would benefit from sweeter breezes, the Louvre was right at the heart of the French capital. The result was that it was practically unusable in summer months, when poisonous miasmas rose from the overcrowded streets and the entire French court packed up and moved to the country. There was still a sense of chaos in the hundreds of rooms he had passed, as staff polished and swept, opening windows to let light and air flood back into shuttered cloisters.

  He sat on a bench in a small alcove, resting his head against a statue much older than Christ, of some Greek with a tightly curled beard. His daughter had withdrawn into herself, hardly speaking even to her husband Clarence. The two of them had been inconsolable as they buried the tiny child in a French field, a niece of an English king. The grave had been marked and Warwick had sworn to bring the box back to England when they were free to do so, for a proper tomb and service. It was all he had been able to offer.

  A door opened, interrupting his thoughts so that he sat straight and then stood as King Louis came out, looking for him. Warwick knelt as the French king wiped his hands with a cloth. The king’s fingers were dark with ink and he eyed them dubiously as he took Warwick’s arm.

  ‘Richard, I have heard of your tragedies. I left my work with these new presses, these printing machines that replace a dozen monks with just three men and a contraption! I am so sorry, both for you and your son-in-law, for your daughter. Did she name the child?’

  ‘Anne,’ Warwick said, in a whisper.

  ‘It is a terrible thing. I have experienced it in too many ways, too often to bear. The dead children who cannot even go to heaven without baptism! It is a cruelty, too much. And your King Edward! To allow such accusations to stand against his earl and his own brother! It is incredible. I offer you my hospitality with my sympathy, of course, anything you require.’

  ‘Thank you, Your Majesty. That means a great deal to me. I have funds and some small property …’

  ‘Pfui! I will sign a thousand livres to you for your expenses. You and your companions are my guests, friends to this house. There are entire floors unused in this palace, my lord. There are worse places to grieve than Paris, I think. It is up to you, of course. I merely offer and advise.’

  Warwick was genuinely touched and bowed once again to show his pleasure at such generous treatment. The king bowed back, solemnly.

  ‘I hope you will take up residence in this place, Richard. You would not be alone.’ The king paused, pressing his finger across both of his lips. ‘I should tell you, perhaps. You were a gentleman before, when I was so crude as to presume on your good manners. It was wrong of me to force you into the presence of one who might have made you uncomfortable.’

  ‘Queen Margaret, Your Majesty?’ Warwick asked, following the stream of words with a little difficulty.

  ‘Of course, Margaret, with that brigand she calls Derry Brewer, who claims to speak no French at all, but listens most acutely to what is said in front of him.’

  ‘I don’t follow, Your Majesty,’ Warwick said.

  King Louis faced him squarely.

  ‘Milady Margaret of Anjou is once again my guest, Richard. I would not want you to be uncomfortable, though she spoke well of you after you met here before. Her son accompanies her also. Perhaps you will find it in you to tell the boy another tale or two about his father.’ The king stared at Warwick’s eyes as if he could see through to the man behind them. ‘If it is not possible, I understand. You have suffered as much as any man. Betrayed by your king, a granddaughter dying at sea before your eyes. Would the child have lived if you had not been forced to run? Of course, of course. It is too cruel.’

  King Louis wiped at his eyes, though Warwick had not seen a trace of tears there.

  ‘You know, Richard, there are some who never truly accepted Edward of York as king. A king must lead, of course, but not just on the battlefield, do you see? It is his role to encourage his lords, to create a rising tide that lifts all the ships, not just his own. Perhaps I should arrange another fine lunch for you to tell Margaret and her son all that has happened. Would that be agreeable, my lord? It would please me. King Henry is still alive in the Tower, yes? Still well?’

  ‘He is the same,’ Warwick replied. He felt a surge of anger at the manipulation, then shrugged it away. He had been cast out of England, left to rot like Margaret of Anjou before him. What if there was a way back?

  ‘Ah, I am pleased,’ King Louis said. ‘His wife tells me that he has no will of his own, poor man. Such tragedy. Yet you have met his son. Quite the Tartar! If you agree to see the lad again, I think you will be amazed at how he has grown in just a few years. He has a more royal bearing, if you follow me. If you agree, Richard?’

  Warwick bowed a third time. Margaret was responsible for the execution of his father. He had imagined her death a thousand times, though less so in later years, when she had been so far from his thoughts. He nodded, finding that the embers had grown cool and he could put aside an old anger at last. Now that he had discovered a new one.

  He had felt despair as he buried the body of his granddaughter. The French king’s words brought a lamp into that deep and inner darkness, giving him hope.


  ‘Of course I will meet Queen Margaret and her son,’ Warwick said. ‘It would be a great honour.’

  Louis was peering closely at him, and whatever he saw brought a gleam to the king’s eye.

  ‘Who could bear a life without challenge, without perils, Richard? Not I! I sense it in you also. While we are all young, why should we not live? Like birds of prey, without regret or too much fear of what lies ahead. I tell you I would rather reach and fall than sit and dream. Is it not the same for you?’

  Warwick smiled, feeling his black depression begin to ease, affected by the man’s sense of delight in the world.

  ‘It is, Your Majesty,’ he said.

  Historical Note

  Gens Boreae, gens perfidiae, gens prompta rapinae

  ‘Northern people, treacherous people, people quick to steal.’

  Abbot Whethamstede, turning a neat Latin phrase to describe Margaret’s army

  After the battle at Sandal Castle in December 1460, known now as the battle of Wakefield, four heads were taken to be spiked on the walls of the city of York. The Duke of York was one, wearing a paper crown to show his empty ambition. The second was Earl Salisbury, father to Warwick. The third head belonged to York’s son, the seventeen-year-old Edmund, Earl of Rutland. Finally, with terrible symmetry, the fourth head belonged to Salisbury’s son, Sir Thomas Neville. Sir Thomas was also seventeen and, for plot reasons, I chose not to place yet another young Neville man in the same battle. The danger of this period is always that there are too many cousins, daughters, sons and uncles to keep a main line of plot moving. Some, who play no major part, must fall away. It is interesting to note, however, how many of the lords at Towton had very personal reasons to seek vengeance.

  Salisbury’s two main titles passed to his sons: Salisbury to Warwick and Montagu to John Neville. John Neville became Earl Northumberland for some time, but was later forced to return that title to the Percy heir by Edward IV. The Montagu title was bumped up to a Marquess to compensate John Neville, though I suspect nothing ever really could. The rank of marquess, somewhere between an earl and a duke, is a rare creation, little known in England – with notable and famous exceptions such as the Marquess of Queensberry, who codified boxing, and the modern Marquess of Bath, who owns the stately home of Longleat, Cheddar Gorge and around ten thousand acres.