Edward suddenly made his presence known to the older men. “Father, may I have the honor of carrying the petition to the holy father?” Richard had been in the habit of inviting his eldest son to any and all conferences with Salisbury, but thus far Edward had been a silent witness.
Cecily half rose in her seat to protest this dangerous mission, for she was now convinced that the king and queen meant her family harm, but Richard forestalled her by answering Edward: “Nay, you may not.”
Salisbury gave his nephew a sympathetic grin, and Warwick clapped the young man on the shoulder and chuckled. “Your time will come, Ned, have no fear. You will be asked to do more than carry a petition, believe me.”
“I pray not,” Cecily piped up from her perch. “Let us hope the king will finally hear reason.”
“We have all wished for that before, my love, to no avail,” Richard said, going to her and kissing her hand tenderly. “So, O wise one, what would you have us do?”
“Anything that does not involve you all getting killed” was her quick retort. “I hear the bell for terce. I pray you excuse me while I go and ask God’s help in that wish.”
Three pairs of admiring eyes followed the duchess from the room, and as she turned to bid them a good afternoon, Richard blew her a kiss. With a heavy heart, she dragged herself to the round chapel and to the solace she always found there. But she wondered if even her own Virgin Mary could deter these men from plunging into certain disaster.
A FEW DAYS later, Richard Beauchamp, the bishop of Salisbury and well known to York and his brother-in-law, arrived with an offer of amnesty in response to the Yorkists’ manifesto.
“You may tell his grace the king this,” Warwick cried, insulted. He had stepped in front of the good bishop before his father or uncle could consult with or stay him. “We thank him for his offer, but we cannot accept. First, we have learned to our distress that a royal pardon has been worth nothing, even one ratified by Parliament. Shall I give you examples?”
The bishop listened patiently as Warwick cited instances, although Cecily could see perspiration on the prelate’s high forehead.
“Next, my lord bishop, we three—and there are other lords who are with us—have no trust in those who give the king counsel today. They have disobeyed King Henry’s orders, and we have therefore had to muster our forces to defend ourselves from them. Again I can give you examples.” Warwick listed several as the bishop shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Cecily was surprised that Richard and Salisbury stood by, seemingly content to let the younger man speak his mind.
When the earl had finished his list, the bishop arched a brow. “Is this all, my lord?”
“No, it is not all!” Warwick bellowed, making the bishop’s clerk jump as he attempted to transcribe the earl’s words on vellum.
“I would have you ask his grace the king whether it is still the law that council members may move freely to and from council meetings. If that is the case, then why was I set upon in Westminster and almost murdered?”
The bishop was at a loss to answer the bellicose earl and stammered a few words of disbelief, though he had been at Westminster at the time and was well aware of the incident. He looked past Warwick at Richard of York and the earl of Salisbury and anticipated yet more reasons for standing firm in rejecting the amnesty.
Richard stepped forward to Warwick’s side. “You can see my lord of Warwick’s point, I am sure, my lord bishop. What have we done to require the king’s pardon, pray? However, we, the lords of York, Salisbury, and Warwick, wish to assure his highness King Henry that we are his liegemen still. Swear you will tell him this.”
“Aye, as God is my witness, your grace,” the bishop replied, bowing to Richard and ignoring Warwick. “But as a man of the church, I would caution you to pray long and hard for a peaceful end to this impasse. The queen and his grace of Somerset arrived to join the king just prior to my departure from Worcester, and they have gathered a considerable army. I beg of you, do not consider using force, my lord.”
Cecily fingered the beads of her rosary in an effort to remain calm. The whole of the royal army is at Worcester? That is no more than thirty miles from here and but two days’ march, she thought. Glancing up at the gallery above the great hall and seeing the faces of Meg and George peering through the balustrade, she felt a surge of panic. Her children! Dear God, the children would be in such danger, she thought. I was foolish not to have left last month, she chided herself. Oh, Richard, I pray you take the pardon, she willed him.
But Richard was kissing the bishop’s ring and bidding the cleric take the Yorkist reply back to Worcester. “As you saw upon your arrival, we too have mustered quite an army,” he told Bishop Beauchamp as the man bowed away from him. “Captain Hall, escort the bishop and his retinue back to the Worcester road.”
Richard’s faithful captain, Davy Hall, strode forward and bowed low, sweeping his arm toward the great hall door for the bishop and his men to precede him.
“THERE WILL BE fighting, will there not?” Cecily asked Richard fearfully when he came to her bedchamber that night. “How I wish I had gone back to Fotheringhay with the children, but I did not want to leave you, my dearest,” she cried, melting into his arms. “It was so selfish of me. I only wanted us all to be together—and happy. I was fortunate to have a happy, carefree childhood, and how I wish my own children could have the same, but I fear . . .”
“Hush, my rose,” Richard soothed, rocking her familiar body in his arms and stroking the still golden hair. His face, however, was now turned from her, mirroring his worry and not his words. “It may not come to battle. The king is not looking for a fight. I feel it in my bones. He is a gentle, saintly man as you well know. If I thought you were in danger, I would have sent you away,” he assured her, not daring to admit his folly.
Cecily pulled herself away and went to pour wine for them both. She had dismissed Gresilde for the night once her disrobing had been accomplished. Constance had hardly left the makeshift hospital since Warwick’s troops had arrived, and Cecily knew the physician preferred to be where she was needed most.
“Aye, ’tis true, but now that he has been joined by Margaret and her other Henry—Somerset I mean, I fear the king will be outmatched. She will be smarting from my brother’s victory at Blore, and you must believe she will seek revenge.”
Richard sipped his wine, and Cecily settled onto a cushion on the floor and began to knead his feet. He sighed with pleasure. “Ah, Cis, how I wish sometimes we were plain yeoman Dickon and his goodwife Cecily, and we could simply grow old together as comfortably as this, with our children safely around us.”
Cecily gave him a wistful smile. “But Goodwife Cecily would still worry about her children and most of all about her husband, because he would have to go off to fight without the benefit of armor and a horse. He might come home horribly maimed and be unable to tend the crops and shear the sheep, or,” she whispered, “he might never come home at all.” In a trice she was on Richard’s lap, her arms wound around his neck. “You will never leave me, will you, my love? I do not care if you come back to me maimed, but promise me you will always come back.”
“Silly goose,” Richard murmured, though a shiver of prescient fear went through him. “I have the finest Italian armor, a destrier that could trample dozens of men, a sword arm that would rival any in England, and an army of faithful followers. All that will bring me back to you, should we have the need to fight. But I predict the king will not come, but if he does, do not fret about the children. Steward Heydon will see to it that you and the children are taken to safety. Where’s my brave Cis? Enough of this melancholy, wife,” he chided her in a teasing tone. “Besides, I have hungered for you all night.”
Cecily could not help but smile into his cambric shirt. “You still lust for me, Richard, although I am an old hag of nearly forty-five?” she whispered. “Then seduce me again, my love, and help me forget my black humor.” She slithered to the floor and began tu
gging at his points with her teeth. “Let me show you how brave I still am,” she murmured. “No simpering miss tonight.”
CECILY STOOD WITH Edmund upon the battlements of the tower keep to watch the progress of a fortified trench being dug at the edge of the camp on the other side of the Teme. Richard’s prediction that the king would not come had been proven wrong. The royal army was at Leominster and advancing fast.
“We shall have command of the bridges and can fall back into the town if we have to,” Richard had explained to a nervous Cecily. “It is safer for us to stay here than to engage the king on the open road.”
Cecily stared down at the thousands of troops arrayed in the meadow, the sun glinting on their weapons and armor, their shouts floating up to her on the cool mid-October air, and she reached for Edmund’s hand.
“I want you to know how proud I am of you, my son,” she began, a catch in her throat. “I have watched you grow all these years and have learned to love your quiet ways.”
Edmund turned worried blue-gray eyes on her, and his sweet face reflected what she feared to see most: terror at the prospect of battle and all its horrors. “And my lord father? Is Father proud of me?” he asked, fingering his empty scabbard with his free hand. “The master of henchmen was strict and I learned to fight, ’tis true, but not as well as Ned. It seems I do nothing as well as Ned.”
His disconsolate tone tore at her heart, but she stood tall and told him in an even voice what every mother should. “Your father loves you all equally, Edmund. He sees your good qualities just as much as I do. Granted, they are different qualities from Ned’s, but in the end you are your own man, and I know which of you I would rather spend time talking to.”
“I am afraid of dying, Mother,” Edmund suddenly said, staring out at Whitcliffe Hill. “I do not want to die.”
Cecily put out her hand to steady herself on the crenel. He had voiced the one thought that she had not dared to contemplate. What should she say? That he should not be so foolish, that of course he was not going to die, that his father would protect him? Help me, sweet Virgin, help me help my son.
“You are a man now, and your training will stand you in good stead, Edmund,” she heard herself lecture in a steady tone. “You will have your orders and you will carry them out bravely, because that is how you have been raised. You will be fighting beside your father and your brother, and you know that our cause is just. Your father would not take up arms against his king if he had not been driven to it.” She was certain that words made these years of conflict sound too simple, but Edmund was listening intently. “God will watch over you, if you have faith, my son. And,” she ended more gently, “there may well be no fighting and you are worrying for naught.”
“Have you ever been afraid of anything, Mother? Have you ever had to be brave?”
Cecily was moved that her son would concern himself with her feelings. She thought about the journeys she had made to strange places with Richard, but she had to admit that she had never been afraid—rather, she had been exhilarated by the experiences. But then her mind went back to that terrible day in Rouen, and she decided to tell Edmund of Jeanne d’Arc’s bravery and how the Maid had died for her faith. Edmund stood riveted, listening to his mother’s description of the execution and how she had lost her first child. When she had finished, he took her in his arms.
“It would seem to me, Mother, that women must be braver than men. They have only their wits to fight with,” he declared. He pulled himself away and cocked his head. “Did you believe the Maid was a witch?”
Cecily smiled. “I know she was not, Edmund. I learned last year that the French clergy examined the trial evidence again and pardoned La Pucelle two years ago. She was a martyr, as I had always thought, and one day I have no doubt she will be a saint.”
Edmund squeezed her hand. “Thank you for this confidence, my lady. I shall pray to be brave,” he said, “and make my lord father proud.”
Thanks be to you, Holy Mother, for your guidance, Cecily thought, believing that it had been the Virgin and not she who had chosen the right words. Facing her son, she saw him stiffen as he looked over her shoulder.
“God’s bones! Look, Mother, there are soldiers coming over the hill.”
Cecily swung around and gasped, fear gripping her gut. The king! The king’s army had already come. Running to the stairs, Cecily called to Edmund to alert the castle guards. Then she flew down to the next floor, along the ramparts, and to the ducal lodgings.
Soon trumpets and shawms sounded the alarm and the complicated machinery that managed the portcullis clanked into action, lowering the iron grid halfway. Pealing bells and urgent shouting echoed the warning in Ludlow’s narrow lanes. Richard left Salisbury and Warwick in charge of the camp while he and Edward with their captains cantered over Ludford Bridge, under Broadgate, up Broad Street into the marketplace, ordering the townsfolk to keep to their homes or leave the town. Wagons and handcarts were trundled away, and many women and children fled down the slope of Corve Street and through the back city gate to the relative sanctuary of the northern woods and fields. Those anxious mothers who chose to stay whisked crying children inside their homes and cowered behind bolted doors and shuttered windows. Soon Ludlow’s streets were deserted and all was quiet, except for the furious activity inside the castle walls.
At the castle, and taking the stairs two at a time, Richard and Edward with several others in their wake hurried to the roof of the tower keep, where Cecily and Edmund had stood not an hour before. Thousands of men as far as the eye could see were still marching toward Ludlow, the royal banners and pennants flying in the wind. To the west the sun had already set, and Richard knew with relief that there would be no battle that day. It gave him a night to plan his strategy—and make arrangements for Cecily and the children to leave. He cursed himself for not sending them away in daylight. Now it was too late.
Although he could see the king’s army advancing on him, he could not really believe Henry wanted civil war. “He has brought this on himself,” Richard remarked to Ned, Edmund, and Henry and Isabel Bourchier’s sons, who had been in training at Ludlow alongside the York brothers for the past few years. “I hope you learn a lesson from this, Ned. To be king—or duke for that matter—means to be your own man, not the puppet of stronger, unscrupulous ones.”
“But should one not repay faithful service, Father,” Edward asked, gazing down upon the extraordinary sight in the usually peaceful meadows of the Teme Valley.
“Aye, Son, but one must recompense service judiciously. To give away your inheritance as the king has carelessly done lessens your power and increases another’s. It is one thing to be grateful, it is quite another to be beholden.”
“It seems to me it must be hard to be a good king,” Edward murmured to himself as he followed his father down to the lower solar to plan their strategy.
THAT EVENING, SERVANTS scurried from the kitchen in the courtyard to the great hall with food and drink for the lords and their allies, including Lord Clinton, Lord Powis, Sir Walter Devereaux, Sir John Wenlock and others, who had rallied to York’s cause in the last few days.
Cecily hurried to the nursery tower for her nightly ritual of prayer with her younger children. Compared with the rest of the castle, the cheery nursery chamber was calm, and she was grateful for Anne of Caux’s practical common sense, which had kept the tension in the castle from upsetting the youngsters. George was teaching Dickon how to feint a sword thrust, and Meggie was earnestly practicing her lute. Her graceful neck was bent over the instrument, and her yellow hair spread about her like spun gold.
“Tut, tut, children,” Cecily said upon entering. “’Tis past your bedtime, I believe. Come, let us gather at the prie-dieu and give thanks to our Savior for this day and to watch over us this night.”
“But Mother,” Meg began, laying aside her instrument, “what about the king’s—”
A warning frown halted thirteen-year-old Margaret’s boldness. This was n
ot the time for questions, the girl surmised from her mother’s look.
But nothing halted Dickon when he had a question. “Why are all those soldiers in the field, Mam?” the boy asked, tucking his hand in his mother’s. “Will there be a battle? Ned says they are come to slay a dragon, but I have not seen dragons hereabouts.”
George gave a snort of laughter. “He believes anything anyone tells him, Mother. There’s no such thing as dragons, addlepate,” he informed Dickon. “The king has come to slay Father, did you not hear?”
Meg cried out in alarm. “Slay him? Say it is not so, Mother. What has Father done?”
“Nay, George! ’Tis you who are the addlepate,” Cecily scolded him. “Look how you have frightened your sister and brother. Go with Nurse Anne immediately and wash out your mouth. Use the soap on him, Nurse. Then come and ask God for forgiveness for your cruel words.” She knelt down and took the crying Dickon in her arms. “Soft, little one, he knows not what he says. Pay him no heed.” Oh, why did we tarry here? she asked herself again. ’Twas the greatest folly.
As George retreated to the washbasin, Meg dared to speak up. “Why must you always punish George, Mother? He is too young to weigh his words.”
“Pish!” Cecily retorted, wondering how she was able to conduct such a mundane conversation at such a dangerous moment in their lives. “He knows very well what he is about. Come, let us pray and then get you to bed, Meg.” She shivered, but whether it was from fear or mounting anger that she and Richard had put them in such danger, she could not say.
She took comfort in continuing to maintain the children’s normal routine. After prayers she tucked the two boys into their big bed and kissed them. “God keep you both this night,” she whispered, before leaving Nurse Anne to blow out the candles and stoke the fire. At Meg’s door she took a deep breath before entering.
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