A Bloody Field by Shrewsbury

by Edith Pargeter

  Always he spoke of her as “the duchess,” never “the queen.” And indeed, she was not yet crowned, nor could she be until she reached England, but by proxy she was already his father’s wife.

  “I know. My uncle of Worcester is going with your uncle of Somerset to fetch her, as soon as parliament rises.”

  “My two uncles,” Hal corrected with a thin smile. “The bishop of Lincoln goes with them.” He was on good terms with his Beaufort kin, the fruit of John of Gaunt’s long liaison with his daughters’ governess, whom he had scandalised England by taking as his third wife after his royal consort’s death. Sometimes Hotspur had felt that the boy had more use for these belatedly legitimised Beaufort bastards than for his own brothers, though he was indulgently kind to the younger boys, almost as to children of a different generation. But when the Beauforts were sent as escorts to his new step-mother, even they came within the range of his sore animosity.

  “Don’t judge the poor lady too soon,” Hotspur said good-humouredly, “she can hardly be blamed for looking to her own defences, and arguably she must be truly fain, or she would not have risked so large a step. You may yet find her as kind and true a friend as a second mother can be.”

  “I am past the need,” said the boy with a forbidding face, and laughed at himself the next moment. “Oh, Harry, my little brothers are looking forward! They’ve ordered a pair of gold tablets for her as a gift. And I must do my part, too, it would not be seemly to hold back. And indeed, if she gives him, as you said once, a little happiness, she’ll have done more than I can do, perhaps for us all. For he is not happy!” said Hal, grieved and impatient and censorious all at once. “What is it he wants?”

  A quiet mind, thought Hotspur; but he did not say it. “A crown is no light weight,” he said, and meant it as sacredly as if he had uttered his first thought.

  “No—I’ve already made note of that. It will touch me, in the end, will it not?” His voice was wary and measuring, but quite unafraid.

  The boy felt cheered before he left, though he had come rather to cheer Hotspur. In the doorway he hesitated, which for him was rare enough, and meant a balance of judgment equally rare.

  “Harry…do you remember we spoke once, in passing, of the earl of the March of Scotland?”

  “Dunbar?” said Hotspur, surprised. “Why, what of him?”

  “I think—I fear—he is not your friend. If you suspect he may use the king for his own ends, having forsworn his own king in Scotland for a grudge, so do I suspect he may make use of your house, which is the chief power in the north, to cultivate his own interest with the king. I have no sound reason…” (He was lying, of course; his cheek—that smooth right cheek turned upon his friend—always reddened to scarlet when he lied.) “It is only a feeling. But never trust him too far.”

  “Why, the man is anxious for himself and his own, as we all are, Hal, and no doubt my eclipse would leave room for his star to rise. But we all direct our own fate by what we do. If I fall, it will be by my own hand, not Dunbar’s.”

  “And by your own folly, you would say?” The boy smiled, for he thought of Hotspur as a repository of pure natural wisdom, not his own kind, but a kind he would most gladly have had for his own.

  “Folly, wickedness, virtue, ambition—who knows what it will be called? But above all,” said Hotspur, holding the torch high on the staircase as they went down together, “and past doubt, mine own.”

  * * *

  On Sunday, November the 26th, after the rise of parliament, the king feasted all the members of his lords and commons, the earl of Northumberland conveying his gracious invitation to both houses. Sir Henry Percy was gloriously present among his peers, moving inviolable among those who had speculated pleasurably upon his disgrace not long ago. And the king, after the wine had flowed freely for a while, was notably civil to him, and showed him some favours that caused a further drawing in of horns. The Douglas episode was past, clearly, and the withholding of that turbulent foe accepted in order to avoid a more disastrous conflict. Percy was worth a modicum of restraint, even if it meant swallowing a rebuff not normally endurable to kings. Those who were courtiers born came to the conclusion that it was a good investment to court the Percies, for clearly their sway was strong.

  Hotspur, who could not love courtiers, found the occasion irksome, and practised restraint in his turn only at his father’s reminder and entreaty. There were Roger’s hostage children to be remembered.

  But even that night of festivities ended at last, and they were all free to disperse. The good commoners to their boroughs and shires, their wives and children and Christmas cheer, the lords to their own estates, to keep the feast in their own regional style, the earl of Worcester, with his fellow-envoys the bishop of Lincoln and the earl of Somerset, to take ship from Southampton, bound for Brittany to bring the new queen home, and the king to settle down at Windsor for Christmas. Hotspur separated himself, upon the excuse of business in Shrewsbury and Chester, from his father’s processional north in state, and rode with a small escort westwards to the abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul, to hold open audience one day for any who came, and by night, and alone, to walk up into the town and make his way to the house of the Fleece near St. Chad’s church.

  He was prepared, this time, to be face to face with her as soon as the wicket opened before him, and have her hand reach out to guide him. It would have seemed to him a jarring discord to be admitted by any other at this door.

  “How did you know? Who told you to expect me? What told you? Do you stand always just within this doorway, waiting for certain people to come? Iago…myself…who else?”

  “They said in the town that you were at the abbey,” she said, “and that you would go north tomorrow. There was no possibility but tonight. Surely I knew you would come. The letter is here for you, more than a week ago.”

  “Is your father within?” He would not enter unless he knew. His conscience was not easy about this young and beautiful widow, with a whole life before her, untroubled, God willing, by intrusive lords and inconsiderate politics. He touched her hand quickly to his lips, a motion of contrition rather than anything more personal, but the contact flamed through him painfully. He was back with her again by the Severn, Julian the virgin martyr, not the muted widow, the soldier of Wales who had put an English general behind her and held him there between her peremptory palms from Welsh steel.

  She drew down their linked hands strongly, and swooping with that dark-gold head of hers, returned the kiss upon his hard male fingers. There was nothing he could do to reprove her or restrain; she was her own law. But he was so shaken and moved that he reached up to touch her cheek with his free hand, in a motion of distracted and bewildered tenderness.

  “Julian, Julian…where are we going, you and I both?”

  “Where we must,” she said, “both you and I. But where that is I do not know or care. I am going. I shall find out where.”

  “And I? How am I to know if I’m going right?”

  “I believe in your rightness of judgment as in the Host. Come in, my lord, and read your letter.”

  He went with her, the candle lighting them up the stairs and into the solar, where Rhodri Parry rose in ceremony to receive him. That was good, it set him back firmly into the framework of state and rank, loaded him again with the obligations of his office. Drinking wine gravely with this Welsh magnate was only an apparent paradox, not a real one.

  They brought him the letter. “By your leave!” he said, and broke the seal and read.

  “Most dear brother Harry,”

  Edmund had written:

  “For your warning I send you my heartfelt thanks, and give you to know, by this writing, that what you have told me concerning the king’s mood and intent does but confirm an inclination which has been budding within me now some weeks, and wanted only the impulse of your news to prompt me to act upon it.

  “To make all clear, I have been received and entertained here with a courtesy and care not alw
ays to be found by prisoners of war, and I owe my present rude health and spirits to the usage I have encountered, being now completely restored, and healed of my wounds. Having given my parole, I ride and exercise as any free man, and enjoy the privileges of a guest. But I have more than this, and your word of the king’s mind towards me has caused me to consider, indeed, where my best interests lie. If I decide with my heart, you will be the last to blame me.

  “I have been blessed here by the ministrations of a most lovely and accomplished lady, not only my kind nurse while I was sick, but my dear companion now that I am well. She is young and tender, and I have not ventured to make to her any earnests of my love, but she in her goodness has afforded me signs enough that she returns the feeling I have for her, and as I believe, her family would not be adverse to my advances. Conceive, then, with what convictions of the guidance of God I have received your letter. You urge me to give thought where my best interests lie, when I am in torment to turn in this one direction; and truly it does seem to me that you have pointed me the way my own heart desires to go. For if I have nothing to hope from England, who live and rule always in some peril on its borders, may I not in all earnest look rather to Wales, in contact with which land, no less, my estates lie, and from which land I can as well receive support?

  “In short, Harry, I am resolved now to approach—as up to now I have not done—the Lord Owen, my captor, and ask him not simply for terms of peace, as I well might have done in whatever case, failing the king’s interest, but also for the hand of his youngest daughter Catherine in marriage. For I love her as never I thought to love any lady, and will have none other but her, whether she will take me or no, as long as I live. And so be my messenger to my sweet sister, and assure her of my love second only to that I bear this gentle jewel, my Catherine, whom she, too, will love if ever I may bring the two together. Hers was the first face I saw when I opened my eyes in this place, and she has been to me ever as friend, sister, protector, and lover, so my sister cannot but love her in return. And you must do as Elizabeth does, for I well know that you enjoy even such a love as I now feel, and cannot therefore grudge me the fruits. And as for the Lord Owen, I do believe he is already ware, and will not deny what I ask. And the more surely to disarm him, what his daughter asks!

  “Harry, if I do ill by your measure, believe that I do right by mine, for I can no other. And carry my love and service to my own Elizabeth, until I can bring to her—if God so grant ever—my dearest Catherine, to be my best advocate. Until which time I take my leave, with the promise to send you word of whatever further decision I may take. And in the meantime, I beg you care for your own wellbeing, and guard yourself from every enemy, for surely they are legion, and come in many guises.

  “With my most humble duty to my true brother and my loving sister, in all affection,

  “Edmund Mortimer.”

  He looked up from reading, and found Julian’s eyes upon him, black and grave. “All is well?” she said.

  He pondered that without haste, and said at length, with deliberation and decision: “All is well. All is very well!” And it seemed to him that all occasions, all omens, all prophetic utterances, everything that had befallen him since first he had set eyes on this girl, combined to drive him in one direction and toward one action, and that would be the climactic action of his life, for better or worse. The tide which had carried both him and Henry far beyond any goal they had ever set themselves had ebbed now, and left him isolated in the race of a contrary tide no less irresistible. But this time he saw, however dimly and imperfectly, where it was carrying him; and this time he was faced with the final judgment, and must of his own will go with it, or of his own might tear himself out of its power and strike out strongly against it. Old impatience with London policies, old sympathy with a gallant enemy and a genuine grievance, the almost accidental involvement with this patriot household, the well-intentioned approaches which had wound him deeper and deeper into their secrets, the strong loyalty to his blood-kin ill-used and imperilled, indignation over his own shabby usage, everything flowed into one powerful stream threatening to sweep him away. But he was still on his feet, and he could still choose.

  If Edmund had not just taken such a giant’s stride towards making the decision for him! For between king and kin, between the oath of fealty and the bond of the blood, dearly though he valued both, the choice for Hotspur was no choice at all.

  “I think,” he said, his eyes holding hers, “there will be some further letter for me, all in good time. And I think it cannot be long. Ask Iago, of his kindness, to make use of my purse and my ring this time without stint, and bring or send me my kinsman’s letter at Bamburgh, by whatever means and whatever safe hand he may. His messenger shall not lose by his journey so far north. And if he come himself, the more welcome,” he said. “There will be letters for him to take back into Wales.”

  * * *

  The envoys to Brittany embarked from Southampton on a stormy sea, and beat southward as best they could, only to be driven back by contrary winds, and forced ever westwards until they were obliged to put back into harbour in Plymouth, far off their course. There was no possibility of putting to sea again but in a refitted ship, and in better conditions. At Windsor the king received their letter reporting their disasters and asking for fresh orders and more liberal funds, and it seemed that even the winter was evilly leagued against him, to keep his bride from him, and with her that lost content he had hoped to regain from her hands as a wedding gift. His own gift to her, a jewelled gold collar of wonderful workmanship, was ready and waiting for her coming, but the severing sea would not let her come.

  This was his case, some ten days into December, when word came to him, a thunderbolt out of a grey but tranquil sky, that Sir Edmund Mortimer, prisoner in Wales, for want of any prospect of ransom by his peers, had made terms of peace with Owen Glendower, man to man, and taken to wife the Welsh prince’s daughter, Catherine.

  Here was he, King Henry, aching alone, separated from his queen by a wintry sea; and somewhere in the western mountains the Welsh rebel’s daughter had opened her bed to a joyful bridegroom, and worse, one who brought with him half the territory of the upper Wye, and much of Maelienydd, a great tract gouged out of the centre of the march, lost to England. Lost, if “terms of peace” meant what he dreaded it must mean, a simple transference of allegiance in this marriage. Though that did not necessarily follow, for supposing even Glendower had doubts of the ending, and might be glad to see a daughter of his set up on English soil and consort to an English nobleman? Young men do love, and Mortimer was young, and the girl, they said, very young, and there might yet be no more in this than a love-match, and the compounding out of good will for a ransom paid gradually from revenue, and the security of one, at least, of Owen’s household. For he had other daughters to provide for. Even older men, the king thought, aware of the ache of longing within him, for some private peace that no one but Joan could supply, do love. It is not a legend.

  But he could not subdue the dread that once again a Mortimer was to be the rock on which the sovereign came to wreck. With all that good border country lost to England and added to Wales—if the Mortimer castellans held to their lord rather than their king, and when had they chosen otherwise?—what was there to keep Owen from encroaching far into the marches, eating away the territory of Shropshire and Herefordshire? No, this was to be too gloomy a prophet! To hold the Mortimer lands was not necessarily to be able to use them for assault purposes, rather they would be always beleaguered. Hal was there, sharp as a lance and steady as a Cheshire bowman between Chester and Shrewsbury, with quick sense and merciless judgment.

  No, it was too soon to judge and condemn. What Mortimer’s bargain meant would come out soon enough, no need to rush ahead too fast into despair. Before Christmas the issue might show plain to be read. And before Christmas, or very soon after, these contrary winds must cease, that kept the escort still fuming helplessly ashore, and Joan would be able t
o make the crossing. And after that he would never again be so desolately alone.

  He turned his mind wholly to perfecting his feverish preparations for her reception. She loved music, as he did—they had corresponded, he knew her tastes as he knew his own. His musicians attended him everywhere he went, but of late his interest had flagged sadly. And his flute—he had not practised now for many months, he must get his hand in again during the festivities, ready to play for her. The choir of the household chapel, too, had been somewhat neglected in the press of affairs, he must give his mind to choosing some new music for them in her honour.

  Once, he remembered strangely, his heart turning in him with a sharp pain, Mary had sung to his flute, a middle voice, full and sweet and true, a half-fledged nightingale…

  Mortimer married to the Welsh girl, his peace made…And what of my peace, the king thought, counting the days in Windsor.

  * * *

  It was on the 15th day of December that a solitary horseman, warmly cloaked and shrouded in a furred capuchin, rode up the coastal track from Embleton, and climbed the great ramps of the hill towards Bamburgh castle, looking eastwards over the undulating dunes and the bleak and troublous sea. He was well mounted, having changed horses no farther away than Warkworth, upon the mandate of a ring known to carry the authority of Sir Henry Percy. The same ring let him in without question at the Constable tower, and up the steep rise to the bailey gate.

  They brought him at once across the inner ward and through the great hall to the small cabinet where Hotspur was conferring with his steward. At sight of the ring in the page’s hand he started up from his chair and pushed the rolls away from him, and the steward, interpreting his look, rose and shook his papers into order, and left the room. Elizabeth, who was stitching at a dress for her little daughter by the fireside, gathered up her work and would have followed his example, but Hotspur laid a hand on her arm.