Ravenspur: Rise of the Tudors

  He would see the boy again, he told himself. Ann would see him first though, he knew that. He had been staring at her, unsure how to deal with her grief; she would not weep and would not leave. He had seen the cloth crumpled in her hand and the great red wetness clutched within it.

  He struck the throat-piece of the armour more cleanly the second time. It broke the joints and the entire helmet went whirling across the yard, bouncing and scraping until it was still. He looked up at the pole and its collection of battered bits of metal, but there was no enemy there any longer, no threat. It was just an old suit of armour and he was tired and in so much pain he wanted to cry out until he had no breath in him. He tossed the sword away then and sank to his knees, staring at the dust.

  He had thought for a time that he would ask Ann for another child, but he knew then she would not live long enough to bear one. He would be alone. His brothers were gone. He would be without a wife, without sons and daughters. He would have no one at all, with all the empty years of his rule stretching ahead of him.

  After a time, as the household servants began to bustle around on the balconies, peeping over at the king who knelt motionless, Richard came to himself. He sensed their eyes on the ridges of his back and it was that which returned him to awareness. He stood and gathered up his sword, seeing how the edge had been ruined beyond the skill of any craftsman to grind out. His muscles had stiffened as he had knelt there and he grunted as he put his tunic on, though it was a more ordinary pain.

  Standing, he looked up at the open windows that led through to the rooms where his son had breathed out and grown still. Richard did not need to see the boy again. He did not think he could bear it. Instead, he filled his lungs with spring air and thought of London and the laws he would pass that year. He thought of Elizabeth Woodville, who lurked even then in Sanctuary, almost as an insult to him. As if he threatened her still. What could he offer, to tempt her out of that damp little place?

  It helped just a little to concentrate his energies on the statutes and laws. Men could not be free, he knew. They had to be constrained in fine nets of threads. None of it mattered much, not compared to what he had lost. He just wished his brother Edward could have been there. Edward would have understood.

  Richard had not entered Sanctuary before. Archbishop Bourchier had lectured him for an age on the rules of the place, granting the blessing of the Church only when Richard allowed a man-at-arms to search him for any weapon. It was a dance, a game, and he went about it with a lighter heart than had been his more recent practice.

  Richard acknowledged the monk of the doorway as he entered. The man did not introduce himself and though he bowed, he spoke not a word. Richard saw a sort of sneering spite in his expression that made him want to kick the monk ahead of him down the corridor. He recalled his brother Edward had knocked a young one out when he’d come to Sanctuary for his wife. Richard hoped it was the same fellow.

  He followed, but a little too fast so that the monk had to trot to stay ahead of him and announce his presence. It was petty, but Richard enjoyed irritating those who thought they might sit in judgement upon him.

  He came when he was called and swept into a finely panelled room that was much better appointed than he had been imagining. Richard had expected rough monks’ cells of stone, not a warm study with lamps and rugs and stuffed cushions on the chairs.

  Elizabeth Woodville came to her feet as he entered, dropping deeply into a curtsey. He bowed in return and took her hand. He had executed her brother Lord Rivers, and he could see an awareness of that in her eyes, or so he told himself. Yet he had come to leave such things in the past, with an offer of peace between them. She had allowed him to enter, after all.

  ‘My lady, I came to you because your daughters must surely be stifled in this tiny place.’

  ‘They are comfortable enough,’ Elizabeth said warily. ‘Though they have wronged no one and deserve the freedom of their estate. Their father was king, after all.’

  ‘Of course,’ Richard agreed. ‘And it is my intention to bring them out into the city once more, if you will permit it. I have arranged for a fine estate to be signed over to you in retirement, with a pension of seven hundred a year. I have brought with me a document to be copied and made public – on every street corner if you wish. It holds my promise to make good matches for your daughters, for their benefit and England’s. I would bring any enmity between us to an end, my lady. Having you and your daughters in this cold place shames me.’

  Elizabeth looked into the eyes of the younger man who ruled in place of her husband. Richard had overseen the passage in Parliament of a document declaring her marriage null and void, her children made bastards. She was not certain even then if it had been a lie or some old foolishness of her husband. Both were possible. Yet a day in Sanctuary was like a month in the outside world. The stillness seeped in, over time. Even the breath of fresh air Richard had brought on his clothes made her ache. He may have been the devil himself, but she was not sure – and she could not throw his offer in his face. For her daughters, she kept peace. Her girls would be found some quiet earls or barons Richard wished to please and flatter. They would be left to grow in winters and summers, to have families and find paths of their own.

  It was not such a terrible vision, Elizabeth thought. Neither was the prospect of a fine country estate and a very generous sum each year to manage it. Compared to the shuffling, whispering presence of monks, it was almost a vision of heaven. Yet there was a bone in her throat that she could not shift. She saw no guilt or shame in the man facing her, but the question was there even so to choke each breath. She could not let him go without asking it.

  ‘And my sons?’ She cleared her throat and tried again more firmly. ‘What of them?’

  ‘I am sorry, my lady,’ Richard said, shaking his head. ‘I do not know for certain, though I believe it was Buckingham. He was Constable of England and always in and out of the Tower. No door could be closed to him. Perhaps he thought he served me, or Lancaster, I don’t know. I do know I failed to protect them and now my own son is in the ground.’ He broke off for a moment as his voice thickened. ‘I do not doubt they are at peace, all three of them. There is great cruelty in life, more than I ever knew when I was young.’

  Elizabeth raised her hand and curled the fingers over her mouth, holding her lips and chin as her hand shook. She made no sound, but closed her eyes on tears, unsure whether it was better to know than not. For a long time, she could not speak and Richard did not disturb her. She did not sob or weep beyond the brightness under her lids. She had years ahead for that. At last, when she could trust herself to speak, she nodded to him, making her decision. She could not go back.

  ‘I will come out of this place, Richard, if you will have your promises read on the streets of London. I would like to see a golden harvest once more, with apples ripe on the trees. I would like to know peace, for my daughters and myself.’

  ‘And you deserve it and so you shall,’ Richard said, his eyes dark. ‘And I am sorry for all you have suffered. You know I speak the truth when I say I loved your husband. Edward saw the best of me and I was always true to him. Always.’

  The new French king had abandoned the Tudors, Jasper was certain of it. If Louis had lived a year longer, he thought the little man would have shrugged off their losses and tried again. Louis’s son Charles was only thirteen when his father collapsed in the middle of a great speech to his lords. The new king’s advisers were clearly of a cautious sort and would not agree to the appalling costs in men and ships and gold that they needed.

  It was true the Tudors had lost half a fleet in the storm. More than six hundred French soldiers had gone to the green depths in a single night. From that moment, as King Louis’s health began to fail, Henry and his uncle had been abandoned in Brittany once more, their letters unanswered. Some ninety men of England had made their way to the city of Rennes to join them. Most were those who had escaped after Buckingham’s failed rebellion, or men
and women who still hoped for some restoration of their families they could never find under York. They came for old glories and took rooms around Jasper and Henry’s modest lodgings. Whatever they had expected was not there. Instead, they found poverty and debtors gathering outside the Tudor house, waving papers for the interest they were owed.

  On the coast, ships still waited for nails and beams and sails, with sailors falling foul of local magistrates so that some of them ended up swinging for petty crimes. The torrent of gold and silver from Paris dried to a complete stop. Even the regular stipend they had received for years came to an end and there was nothing Jasper or Henry could do about it.

  Jasper doubted the new king even knew their names. He had always found Louis pleasant company, and for the first time, both Henry and Jasper appreciated how difficult it was to gain an audience with a king if he, or more likely his courtiers, were not willing. As the months passed, the Tudors had to sell every item of value just to eat. More letters went out from Jasper by messenger to Calais, to be carried to Wales and London. He hated to beg, but the alternative was to starve. Jasper had one or two friends left in Wales, but the Stanleys were the best hope in lean times. As a reward for service, Sir William Stanley had been made Lord Chief Justice in Wales. He sent news and occasionally a purse of silver at the request of his older brother. Lord Thomas Stanley seemed to want to please his wife, Margaret, and her exiled son. Henry’s mother sent a pouch of her own when she dared to, though she thought she was watched. She had kept her place at court, but King Richard had spies all around, just making reports and notes, gathered in at the Tower.

  Jasper and Henry survived – and if their meals were spartan and their clothes were no longer in fashion, both had known and endured worse. At least talk cost nothing. Their little community of English and Welsh had grown to a couple of hundred and they could laugh and talk the evenings away. Some of them had taken work in Rennes, settling into the life.

  Along the coast, they were still able to see the broken ribs of warships driven in upon the shore. Of the eighteen, nine had reached safe harbour and Jasper and Henry had shown their visitors the sight, walking along the cliffs every few days to watch men clambering about them, busy with tools. One by one the great ships had vanished, just as soon as they were fit enough to limp away under sail.

  An entire year passed in royal disapproval before a smart young herald appeared at the door of the Tudor house. Jasper Tudor felt his heart give a great thump as he caught sight of the man in brushed cloth and embroidered gold, wearing a panel of fleurs-de-lis. Jasper ushered him in and took the scroll he was given. He unrolled it and peered at tight black lettering without spaces of any kind, filling one side to another. Jasper heard himself breathing as he nodded and used the tip of a finger to trace along a line so as not to lose his thread of understanding.

  ‘Yes … oh, good boy …’ he said. For the first time, he heard that King Richard had lost both his heir and then his wife, a few months later. The throne of England was vulnerable and it seemed someone in the French royal court had recalled two Tudor men waiting on just such an opportunity. In growing delight, Jasper read permission to draw on royal funds once more. He could take it to any moneylender and empty the man’s coffers. His hand began to tremble and he heard a rattle of cartwheels on the cobbles outside, making him look up. He rushed to the cottage door and looked down the hill.

  The road from the east was filled with carts and marching men. The fourteen-year-old King Charles of France had decided to act. Jasper turned to his nephew in astonishment.

  ‘It says two thousand men, well trained and armed. These are just the first of them.’

  ‘We’ll need many more than that,’ his nephew said. ‘I’ll start in Wales then.’

  ‘Where in Wales?’ Jasper asked him. It was a strange thing to look to his nephew in a new light. Henry’s claim was so weak that it would never have stood the light of day in a good year. Yet there had been no good years since Tewkesbury. Henry’s mother was Margaret Beaufort and four generations before, John of Gaunt and the house of Lancaster appeared in the family line. It would do.

  Jasper looked up as he remembered the little woman he had taken from Pembroke all those years before. After all the pain and grief she had known, Margaret was happily married to Lord Stanley – and she had kept an eye on her son all his life, waiting and hoping for the perfect moment. There had been a dozen houses with better claims than the Tudors, but then they had not survived the slaughter of thirty years of war. Henry Tudor was the last of the house of Lancaster who might yet claim the throne of England. It was a thought to conjure with, a thought to make a man stand in awe.

  The advisers to the French king certainly thought there was a chance. Over in England, Richard Plantagenet was weaker than he had ever been, his line broken. If he could be brought to the field before he fathered another heir, the crown could be taken from his hands, from his head. It was a chance, a wild and desperate gamble. It would almost certainly cost them their lives. Yet they would go anyway. They would risk it all. Jasper grinned at his brother’s son, knowing only too well what he would say.

  ‘Pembroke, Uncle,’ Henry Tudor said. ‘I would like to go home.’

  31

  The ships eased away from the coast of Brittany in full summer, over a hot and sullen August night. The Tudors had agreed that much with the king’s men and the Duke of Brittany. There would be no repeat of the previous disaster, sailing into the teeth of an autumn storm. With time on their side, they’d waited for calm seas, clear skies and a good moon to light the way. There was always the chance of encountering an English warship or even a customs boat or two, out on the deep to watch for smugglers. Those were the risks, though if a captain of any such craft saw their fleet, he would surely turn tail and run for home.

  With the sea unthreatening and gentle, they slipped across. The warships backed sails though there was so little breeze they were practically becalmed. They anchored out on the shining water, coming one by one in order, right up to the quays of the port to unload men and cannon and horses, then moving away, back to the open water.

  French soldiers set foot for the first time on Welsh soil, at Milford Haven, standing in tense groups while their force increased. There had been a scuffle with some local men at first, with one or two left to go cold on the cobblestones. At least one boy had gone yelling for help, racing into the hills. Before the last ship disgorged its soldiers, there was a bonfire on a local crag, with another springing into life a mile away.

  The villages of that coast had known raiders and slavers since before the time of Rome. By the time the sun showed, they were gone like shadows into the thick forests, with bows and axes to protect their women and children. They knew only too well that raiders took what they could carry and left the rest burning.

  It was not the same with the soldiers the Tudors had brought to Wales. They set up an armed boundary and patrolled it. In full view on the docks, they used blocks and tackle to assemble wheeled carts, lowering cannons on to them with a few smashed fingers and a deal of swearing. Scout riders galloped away in all directions, summoning those who had not forgotten the Tudors.

  Pembroke Castle lay just a few miles away, closer than it had been in a dozen years. Jasper could feel it there as he raised his head to face the dawn. The woodland and roadsides of Brittany and Paris never smelled quite the same as the home he remembered. Just standing in that spot brought a thousand memories back, from his father’s smile to swimming a freezing lake in the Brecknock mountains – or the ‘Break Necks’ as his father, Owen, had called them.

  His old haunts were calling to him, tugging him away from the sea. Jasper had spent about as much of his life in France as he had in Wales, but he knew where home was. Home was the great grey stone fortress that had never been breached, where he had once been earl. He prayed that one day he might yet enter Pembroke once more as its lord. Stranger things had happened in the history of the world, he thought. One of them ha
d happened that very night, with an army ready to march through Wales in support of his nephew – to challenge the last Plantagenet.

  Around Jasper, English and a few Welsh voices murmured amidst the French. Those who had come out to join them in Brittany had not been left behind. They had landed with the rest and as he watched, one or two of them dipped down and picked up a tuft of grass or a few small stones, just to hold. There was a love there that was difficult to describe to anyone who did not feel it. He smiled to himself, touching a smooth stone in his pocket that had once been part of Pembroke’s walls. He understood well enough.

  Strangest of all was seeing his nephew walking amongst them. Henry Tudor wore a set of fine armour that had been the personal gift of the new French king. It covered every inch of the young man, but allowed a perfect range of movement. He had worn it endlessly since it had arrived from Paris, understanding that he needed to be able to move freely and to build the strength to run and fight. In such things, Henry followed his uncle’s advice without question, accepting his experience. For the rest, there was a part of him that could never be persuaded or rushed into action. If Jasper overstepped, he would see his nephew tilt his head and consider, then reject his advice. It could be infuriating, that coldness, but by Henry’s age, Jasper had been an earl with battle experience. It worried him that Henry had never seen arrows fly in anger, not once.

  Jasper shook his head in bemusement to see how Henry had grown into his authority. Ever since the remnants of Buckingham’s rebellion had found their way to him, they’d made a crude court, pinning their hopes to the last Tudor, as if he had been born to command. They looked to Henry as a young King Arthur and some of the Welsh had even taken to calling him the ‘Mab Darogan’: the Man of Destiny from the old tales, the one who would conquer the white dragon and restore the red. It could not have been a coincidence that the house of York bore a white rose. The house of Lancaster had a dozen badges and symbols, with a swan featuring most prominently. Yet the red rose was there too – and more importantly, Henry’s ancestors had carried the red dragon on a battle banner. Jasper could only stand in wonder at the perfection of it. Would an uncle know if his nephew was the Mab Darogan? He saw the way the men looked to Henry, and of course, the young man never faltered, never made himself a fool or spoke too loudly or in drink. His peculiar coldness served him well, so that he seemed something more, rather than something less, at least to men looking for a leader.