I know not when you will receive this, Cis, but I should make you aware that I am not idle here and nor have your brother, nephew, and our son been idle in Calais. You may or may not be aware that Warwick has been with me these last three weeks—she broke off reading to look at the date on the letter: the feast of St. Philip in early May—and we are near to resolving a plan. We have learned of the discontent with which the people view the king’s government and soon our time will be ripe to return. When your nephew sails for Calais again, he will take his mother with him. I know not if you were informed that she came with me to Ireland.
Alice was in Ireland? Certes, she was doing more than raising children at Middleham, Cecily thought with grim amusement, remembering that Alice had been helping recruit men for Salisbury. And to have fled like that, she must have known she would be implicated with the rest and attainted. She is braver than I, Cecily admitted to herself.
I long to see you and our three youngest. Rest assured Edmund is thriving, away from his elder brother’s caustic tongue. He has become a man, and he sends you loving greetings. As for your husband, he begs you to know that you are in his heart every waking moment and he prays daily for the time when you shall be reunited. Your devoted servant, Richard.
A flock of noisy starlings darkened the branches of a beech tree, bringing her back to the garden. She got up from her seat and went to look for George and Dickon, tucking the precious letter into her bodice. She would need to destroy it, she knew, but for a brief time she might hold it close to her heart.
Cecily could not hear her sons’ usual boisterous play and frowned. As she wound her way through bushes and shrubs, calling their names, she heard shouting in the street on the other side of the high garden wall. She had been vaguely aware that city noises were reaching her in the peaceful garden, but now she could hear the voices plainly, and there were many of them, coming closer to Bow Lane. Finding a sturdy wooden door slightly ajar at the end of the garden, she tensed, guessing that her sons had slipped through to see what the fuss was about in the street. The stench of dead fish and sewage from the nearby river was overpowering, and she crushed a few rose petals from the blooms over the door’s stone arch and held them to her nose.
She discovered her two boys pressed into the archway, watching in fascination as a large group of men surged up from the wharves. Curious herself, Cecily pulled both boys close to her and stood just inside the door, trying to determine the tenor of the crowd. Soon there were other interested men and women hanging from their windows across from Buckingham’s house, and Cecily sensed the mood was one of excitement, not anger.
“Sandwich be taken!” a man yelled from within the throng up to those in the windows. “Fauconberg has taken Sandwich. Warwick will follow. It be sure as there be tits on a cow.”
George giggled as an adolescent might, and Dickon mimicked him, though Cecily was sure he had no idea what George had found amusing. A cheer went up. “Warwick! Warwick!” And then someone shouted, “Let us get ready to give the good earl a welcome, lads. The ale is on me!” And cheerfully singing a bawdy song, the group swung into Royal Street on its way to the nearest tavern.
Closing the door, Cecily leaned against it to steady herself. Her palms were sweating and her pulse was on fire. Warwick is coming, she repeated to herself in disbelief, and then she recalled what the first man had shouted: Fauconberg had taken Sandwich. William! Her brother, Lord Fauconberg, had obviously distinguished himself, and how proud she felt that yet another Neville had come to Richard’s aid.
“Can we play now, Mother?” George said, his ready smile turned full on her. “You promised.”
Cecily beamed back. “Aye, I did. Shall I hide first?” As the boys closed their eyes and counted, she ran back to the exedra and ducked behind it. She put her hand on the hidden letter by her heart. Richard would be here soon. She could feel it.
THE LORDS OF Calais, as they styled themselves, were back on English soil soon after, and Gresilde, with a torn parchment in her hand, came hurrying into the children’s wing, where she knew Cecily was wont to spend her mornings.
“’Tis said my lord Edward of March is landed with his uncle and cousin, your grace,” the out-of-breath attendant told Cecily. “And they came in the company of a papal envoy. Does this mean they have the blessing of the Holy Father? I think so.” Her face was pink with excitement. “It must be that my lord of York will follow from Ireland very soon, do you not think?”
She handed the parchment to Cecily, her eyes shining. “I found this nailed on the door of St. Michael Paternoster, my lady.”
Cecily read the neatly written poem aloud:
Send home, most gracious Lord Jesu benign,
Send home thy true blood unto his proper vein
Richard duke of York, Job thy servant insigne,
Edward earl of March, whose fame the earth shall spread.
Richard earl of Salisbury named prudence
With that noble knight and flower of manhood
Richard, earl of Warwick shield of our defense
Also little Fauconberg, a knight of great reverence.
She thrilled to the words. When she had finished, she looked at Meggie, who had drawn close and was as enthralled as Gresilde and Beatrice.
“That is our family,” Cecily told her daughter. “You should be proud of them—your father, your uncles, your brother, and your cousin. Come, let us pray for them and ask God to let us all go home soon.”
CECILY MOVED ASIDE the concealing sheet to allow Beatrice to pour more hot water into the large copper bathtub set in the middle of her bedchamber at Maxstoke in early July. When the bath had been replenished, the attendant retired behind the curtain, and Cecily lay in solitude. She relaxed her body into the delicious warmth, her graying hair floating on top of the water, and eyed her belly. She was always critical of its telltale stretch marks. Then she closed her eyes and sighed. It had been a dismal summer thus far, and this July day was no different. As the rain beat a tattoo upon the diamond window panes, Cecily had decided a warm bath would help to dispel the gloomy weather outside. She knew Anne would grumble when the request was sent, as it meant that several of Anne’s busy servants would be needed to haul pails of hot water up the three flights of stairs, and then empty the tub in the same tedious fashion. Cecily didn’t care; she needed the tonic.
She cast her mind back to June and the landing of the lords of Calais. The Buckinghams’ sojourn in London had been as brief as Warwick’s progress toward London had been swift. She had gleaned from gossip brought into the Royal Street residence by the local servants that the populace was tired of the bad governance of the saintly king and his greedy council and prayed the Yorkists would bring about reform. It was King Henry’s grasping councillors Londoners loathed and not the king himself. In fact, she had been astonished to discover that people believed he was touched by God not only because of the sacred anointing oil but even more for his holy ways. They wished no harm to Henry, just an end to the lawlessness that the squabbling, unscrupulous men about him had caused.
As one of those men, Buckingham had sent his household back to the safety of Warwickshire. Then he had marched his troops to join the king at Coventry. So Cecily was not in London to witness the triumphant arrival of Edward with his uncle and cousin, but her heart sang when she heard the citizens chanting those lords’ names as she had left the city. Immediately upon his landing at Sandwich, Warwick had proclaimed that he had only come to speak with the king and to affirm his loyalty to the crown. Where had she heard that before? Cecily thought, irritated. It was time for a new regime, she had heard a groom say when she had wandered into the stable to see that her horse had been shod, and she agreed.
Aye, Richard, she mused, sponging her body and inhaling the sweet smell of the dried lavender flowers sprinkled on the bathwater, perhaps now it is time to assert your Mortimer claim to Edward the Third’s throne—Sweet Jesu, what is that ghastly noise?
It sounded like the hound
from hell. She stood up abruptly, convinced that it had come from one of the many children in the nursery. She called out to Beatrice to investigate and grabbed a drying sheet off the stool. Before the attendant could put aside the mending of Cecily’s gown, the door burst open and she saw that the dreadful noise issued from the throat of Anne of Buckingham.
“He is slain! Humphrey is slain!” Nan wailed, her thick brown hair tumbling from her coif and her face as white as ewe’s milk. She pointed at her sister, wrapped only in the sheet, wet hair straggling down her back. “Your husband has killed my Humphrey! ’Tis all your fault,” she screamed. Cecily looked aghast but stepped out of the tub and reached out for Nan, who collapsed into her sister’s arms. “Cecily, oh Cis, what shall I do?”
“Come, come, Nan,” Cecily soothed, gentling her onto the bed and stroking her face. “Calm yourself, my dear sister, you must calm yourself.” Then she whispered, “Remember the servants. I beg of you, pull yourself together.”
Anne turned away to bury her face in the pillow, her shoulders heaving, but the noise diminished. Cecily’s thoughts were racing. There must have been a battle, she thought, shivering now from cold and fear. And Humphrey’s death was the result of men’s ambitions—her own husband’s included. She clutched the sheet suddenly. Dear God, Ned must have been there. Was it Edward who had killed Humphrey? She prayed with all her might that it had not been her son. And then she thought, is he slain, too?
She had just thrown her shift over her head when two of Anne’s attendants hurried in, dropping curtseys to the duchess of York and awaiting orders. Cecily beckoned one to stand close, told the other to fetch some poppy juice, and then allowed Gresilde to help her on with her underdress. Anne still lay facedown on the coverlet, weeping.
“What has happened, mistress?” Cecily asked the first of Anne’s ladies, as she sat beside her distraught sister and allowed Beatrice to tie up her wet hair in a towel.
“There has been a battle, your grace,” the trembling young woman said, confirming Cecily’s fear. “The messenger arrived not half an hour ago with the terrible news.” She told them that Salisbury, Warwick, and Edward of March, with upward of twenty thousand men, had gone north and met the king at Northampton. In only an hour they had routed Henry’s army and killed the lords Buckingham, Egremont, Beaumont, and Wiltshire.
Cecily could hardly believe her ears: the hated Wiltshire, Egremont, and Beaumont all dead? That was good news, she wanted to shout, and ’twould be even better if Exeter and Somerset were named. She waited for the frightened woman to finish. “Who was slain that was with Warwick?” she demanded and held her breath. Please, God . . .
The attendant shrugged nervously. “It seems no one titled, your grace, but the king was captured in his tent. He knew not what was happening, so the messenger said, and went quietly with my lord of Warwick, God help him.”
At that moment another attendant arrived with a corked vial of poppy juice, and Cecily put out her hand for it. Needing to ponder what this news would mean, she thanked the women and dismissed them.
“I shall attend my sister,” she assured them, sitting down on the bed. Part of her was reeling with excitement that the Yorkists had been victorious and Henry captured. It might mean Richard and Edmund were on their way from Ireland. But her cautious side was calculating the consequences of such a victory. Aye, Henry had been taken before, at St. Albans, but it had availed Richard nothing. This time, however, Queen Margaret was all-powerful, and Cecily knew the queen would not sit idly by while her husband was in Yorkist hands.
Gentling Anne into a sitting position, she encouraged her sister to swallow a few drops of the sedative, glad to see that Nan had ceased sobbing.
“What shall I do now, Cis?” Nan asked pathetically, as if she had relied on her younger sister to tell her what to do all her life. “You always seem to know.”
Cecily gave a rueful smile. If only Nan knew how helpless and rudderless she had felt all these months, but now was not the time to remind her sister of her singular lack of compassion. Nor would she gloat as Nan had, now that the tables were turned. She had seen too many reversals of her own fortune and knew how short-lived they could be.
“I will protect you for as long as you want, dear Nan,” she said, noting the poppy juice was having its desired effect. “But for now I shall leave you to sleep while I go and tend to your grandson. He will be frightened.” If his grandam’s screaming had not terrified the five-year-old Henry Stafford enough, the fact that he would now, by virtue of his father’s death at St. Albans, be duke of Buckingham might well accomplish it.
Deep in thought, Cecily closed the curtains about her sister and left the room. Outside, waiting for her, Meg cast anxious eyes at Cecily. “Is Aunt Anne going to be all right, Mother? They told me of the battle. What does it all mean?”
“It means it will not be long now, Meggie,” she murmured, squeezing the girl’s hand. “Your father will be here soon.” She saw her daughter’s joy in the lift of her head and spring in her step and, for the first time in a year, Cecily felt optimistic too.
ENGLAND WAS A soggy, mud-mired mess as the summer turned to autumn. The English people struggled through a disastrous harvest, grumbling at the quagmire that the weather and King Henry’s government had made of the country.
But for Cecily the sun had come out from behind the clouds of the past nine months and she felt alive again. Edward had come with Warwick. He had sent her word to come to London with Meg to be reunited with George and Dickon and had arranged for her to stay at the late Sir John Falstoff’s house in Southwark. Cecily hardly noticed the sodden landscape, for her heart was filled with hope. Anne, still grieving for Humphrey, clung to her sister on the castle steps.
“Will you forgive me for my unkindnesses to you, Cecily?” she had whispered, tears close. “I have to confess I have always been jealous of you, and I am sorry for it. You have been a rock for me these past weeks, and I find myself grateful for your kindness. Say you will forgive me.” She wiped her nose on her silk kerchief, her eyes brimming.
Once again Cecily softly chided her elder sister: “No tears, remember? And aye, I forgive you.” She patted Anne’s hand. “Let us pray that the next time we meet ’twill be in happier circumstances. But now, look to your grandson, Nan. He needs your love before he becomes someone else’s ward and has to leave you. Enjoy him while you can.”
The road from Maxstoke took Cecily through Coventry, St. Albans, and Barnet. On the third day, the swelling numbers of wagons, riders, and people on foot signaled proximity to London. The mighty spire of St. Paul’s soared into view and the cacophony of the capital reached Cecily’s ears. The unpleasant city odors caused her to raise a sweet-smelling tussie-mussie to her nose, and Edward’s greyhound’s bad breath did not help. A dog lover himself, Buckingham had relented and taken Ambergris in with Cecily and her children, and Meg was hoping Ned would be pleased that his little sister had taken such good care of the animal.
Southwark teemed with frequenters of the many taverns and stews, and Meg stared, fascinated, at the streetwalkers, loitering half naked against the sides of houses and ogling potential customers. Cecily was glad when they turned off the High Street and found Falstoff’s Place, a comfortable two-story mansion with a walled courtyard and secluded garden.
Standing on the steps, waiting to greet their mother and grinning from ear to ear, were Edward, George, and Dickon. Edward went forward to help Cecily from her carriage, and before he could put out his hand to take hers, Ambergris bounded out, almost knocking him over. Meg scrambled out next, laughing, and ran up the steps to embrace George and then Dickon. Cecily found herself lifted from the vehicle by her giant of a son, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and breathed in the manly scent of leather, horses, and Edward’s favorite oil of orris root.
“Put me down, Ned. I may be a year older than when last you saw me, but my legs still work quite well,” she said, chuckling.
“God’s greeting to yo
u, my lady mother,” Edward murmured, setting her down and kissing her hand. “We are all delighted to see you.”
George and Dickon eschewed all convention and threw themselves into her arms as she knelt on the step to hug them. “My boys, my dearest boys,” she whispered, fighting back tears of real joy. “Meg and I have missed you so.”
“Us too,” George cried. “But Ned has come to see us every single day, has he not, Dickon?” Dickon nodded vigorously, looking up in awe at his eldest brother.
“Just making certain you stay out of trouble, ’tis all,” Edward said with a laugh. “Now, Mother, I hope you will be satisfied with your lodging.”
Taking Edward’s arm and holding Dickon with her other hand, Cecily went into yet another new home followed by Meg and George cosily arm in arm.
A FEW DAYS later, Cecily was in her privy chamber writing to her daughter Anne when a servant announced a messenger, whose livery of white and blue embroidered with fetterlocks was thoroughly mudspattered.
“I have a message from his grace, the duke of York, my lady,” he began, down on one knee.
With a gasp of excitement Cecily rose abruptly. “From my husband? Are you come from Ireland, sir?”
The man grinned. “Nay, your grace. My lord of York landed at Chester more than a week ago,” he said, pulling a letter from his tunic. “He commanded me to give you this.”
My best beloved Cecily, I am come home and I greet you well. I have tarried at Chester for a few days but will travel to Ludlow soon on my way to London. It would please me if you would meet me at Hereford, for I would see you as soon as you are able. Can you do that, my love? Ask Edward to fit you out with a suitable vehicle, for I know he is in London with you. Until very soon then. In the meantime, I remain your humble servant and devoted husband, R. York.
Within a day Cecily was back on the road in a magnificent carriage with four pairs of black coursers to pull her swiftly west. While Edward had carried out his father’s wish to find the conveyance for her, Cecily prepared herself to see her husband for the first time in a year by bathing in rosewater, lightening her hair with chamomile and lemon juice, and rubbing her body with musk oil. Gresilde accompanied her mistress, and Edward had hired an escort of a dozen armed men to protect his mother. He had told her that Parliament had been summoned to sit and the king was being brought to Westminster for the opening on the seventh day of October. He expected his father would want to be there.
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