Queen of the North

by Anne O'Brien

  All true, and the bleakest of résumés. Richard was dead. The only cause to champion, for those disaffected from Lancaster, was that of the Mortimers. Who was there to raise the banner, to fire the hearts, if the Earl of March was locked up and Edmund somewhere lost in Wales? Who was there to lead a Mortimer campaign against Henry?

  ‘He’ll never release my nephews, will he?’ I said.

  ‘I doubt it. I wouldn’t, in Henry’s position. He’s got what he wanted, hasn’t he? A handful of useful sons to rule after him and all opposition removed. If he can bring the downfall of Glyn Dwr in Wales, arrange the silencing of your brother one way or another and keep the Percy lords happy in the north, his troubles are solved.’

  I considered. Well, I would ask, even if I did not like the answer.

  ‘Would you be prepared to defy him? To negotiate with Glyn Dwr again, for Edmund’s release?’ Clutching at distant hopes, when Harry had awarded me another lengthy silence to work out my emotions against the familiar scene of hills and woods and the rooks that rose noisily at our approach.

  ‘No. It would be senseless.’ He must have felt my anger, my despair. ‘Tell me what you see, Elizabeth. Tell me the forces that stand against us.’

  I thought.

  ‘King Henry has an army in the field and the Scots are looming in the north. Glyn Dwr has the Welsh tribes behind him and is wreaking havoc in the Welsh March. While we are trapped in the middle…’

  ‘Exactly. If we are careless, we’ll be caught like a sword blade between hammer and anvil, and distorted out of true alignment. We can’t risk that. Edmund has to pay the price for his crass response to Rhys Gethin’s crafty planning at Bryn Glas. The Percys will hold the north and not dabble in events that don’t concern them. Which on this occasion means Mortimer affairs.’

  ‘But what if…’

  I was still reluctant to abandon the cause, even though I could not argue against Harry’s brief but masterful assessment of our position. The ill feeling between us had long mellowed but the Mortimers remained as sour dregs in the bottom of our cup of happiness.

  ‘You have to resign yourself to it, Elizabeth. The King won’t rescue him, and neither can I. As for the Earl, he won’t give it a second thought.’ He considered briefly. ‘As it was pointed out to me, it would be treason to go against royal commands.’

  ‘Would you care? It was treason to support him against Richard.’

  ‘I know.’

  It was not dissimilar from trying to extract juice from a rock-hard quince.

  ‘Is it true that the King has not paid you for your service to him?’ I asked.

  ‘It is true.’

  ‘So you say that we cannot afford to ransom Edmund ourselves.’

  ‘It cannot be done.’

  Which sharpened my response somewhat. ‘It seems to me that it could be done if anyone had the inclination. All men are the same. As long as a man has power in his hands, then he will let sleeping dogs lie.’

  ‘An excellent picture. This is certainly a Welsh dog that should be left to sleep. Or perhaps a dragon, allowed to slumber in its Welsh cave.’

  I would have the last word. ‘Once you made Lancaster King.’ I remembered Philippa’s thoughts. ‘You could unmake him.’

  ‘To what purpose? I’ll not raise a rebellion in the Mortimer name. We have a war of our own to fight, and I would rather not be fighting one with King Henry as well.’ He pulled his horse to a standstill, which forced me to do likewise. ‘I would rather not be at war with you again either. The dust has only just settled from the last sharp skirmish. Can we make a permanent peace, rather than a truce that will fall apart at the first hurdle?’ He stretched out his hand to close over mine on my reins. ‘My heart is with you, Elizabeth. But my head says to leave well alone. So should yours.’

  I sighed, seeing the rightness of it, desiring eternal warfare no more than he did.

  ‘I cannot,’ I said, stubborn to the last. ‘It matters too much.’

  Philippa’s wise words were discarded.

  ‘Then we must agree to differ.’

  Expression hardening, eyes hooded, when he removed his hand from mine it felt as if he was indeed withdrawing his love. I was even more bereft when he kicked his horse into a canter, leaving me to follow with the escort at my own speed.

  My heart was a solid weight in my chest for this was my own fault. For once Harry had been willing to compromise, and I could not, closing the door on our negotiation, with no encouragement for further improvement. There was no one to blame but myself.

  Chapter Eleven

  Alnwick Castle: September 1402

  ‘Birds of ill omen,’ Dame Hawisia muttered, clutching some ancient talisman of dubious nature to her black-garbed chest. ‘I know about this. There’s bad things coming, mark my words.’

  In those days, in that autumn, we were troubled by rooks and jackdaws roosting in the crevices of the towers. They were always there, come in for shelter as the weather grew colder, but they had arrived in far greater numbers this autumn than I had ever seen them. Their raucous cries, their droppings fouling the stonework, just the vast mass of them as if in some malign collusion, made the household wary. Black feathers drifted down. And with them black thoughts.

  ‘Nothing of the sort,’ I responded smartly.

  Walking along the wall walk, I determined that I would not be intimidated in my own home; by a Scottish army at our door perhaps, but not by Dame Hawisia’s declaiming of soothsayings and predictions.

  Hal ran ahead, ever a bold lad, to dislodge the birds with hoots and wheeling arms, sending them circling into the air in a grim cloud of disapproval, but Bess stayed close to me.

  ‘They will not harm you.’

  ‘They look at me,’ she said.

  Her childish features, still soft, were patterned with fear. It beat against my heart.

  ‘We can soon stop that.’ I picked up a piece of flat stone dislodged from the parapet. ‘How good is your aim? Can you throw this? Can you throw it as far as Hal?’

  Without question Bess took it and threw, a commendable attempt for so small a child, so that it smacked against one of the crenellations, causing Hal to duck and the rooks to depart in a clatter of wing and claw.

  ‘Excellent!’ I praised her, removing a feather that had lodged in her bodice, tucking her hair into her coif. ‘See how brave you are. As brave as Hal. Your father will allow no one to harm you. And nor will I.’ It pleased me to see her smile.

  ‘The birds won’t harm her. It’s what they predict that brings the trouble,’ remarked Dame Hawisia, lurking at my side. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  But what did they predict? Superstitions and fears ran rife in the household, from the arrival of the Scots in battle array to a swarm of rats in the cellars. In the end I sent two of the ostlers – with an enthusiastic Hal in tow and a brace of falcons – to discourage the birds from roosting, but without too much effect. They continued to congregate with their sharp eyes and sharper beaks. They made me shiver.

  ‘They won’t go until the ill prediction has come to pass.’ Dame Hawisia continued to enjoy the attention when my household asked for her interpretation.

  ‘That’s as may be, but I don’t want to hear you speaking of it to Hal and Bess.’

  ‘I would do naught to frighten them.’ She stalked from my presence in a black swirl of anger.

  ‘I am not frightened,’ Hal assured me with shoulders squared.

  ‘I am,’ admitted Bess.

  Were we not all afraid? Sometimes in the night I woke to feel terror sitting on my chest, like one of the malevolent imps painted in the chapel to warn us of what would await a sinner in hell. It is only fear of the unknown, I chided myself, trying to catch my breath, for I would not burden Harry with my nightmares. Still they remained, even in daylight, as the black birds flew across the sun, making fluttering shadows against the stonework.

  I could do nothing to reassure Bess other than distract her with a vi
sit to the mews where the hawks were moulting. My own present anxieties were nothing to do with either the Scots or the rats, but with the wellbeing of Harry in the north. When the dusk call of the white owl screeched between the towers every night for a week, it made me imagine souls in torment.

  ‘Elizabeth!’

  The vast bailey into which I had emerged some time ago was filled with a rough mingling of Northumbrian, Scots and French voices. One rang out in a bellow above the rest. My relief was a live thing. The feathered omens of death had proved false.

  ‘Elizabeth!’

  Deciding that it would be politic to respond, I began to push through the throng, accompanied by our steward who was prepared to smooth my path. I really had not needed to be summoned. Harry was home.

  Our lives, as indicated by the Earl, had returned to the normal run of affairs, of attack and retreat. Nor had Harry been misinformed about the all-pervading miasma of war in the north. Before the end of the campaigning season, the Scots, their pride damaged by the Percy victory at Nesbit Moor, launched a reprisal over the border. In the early days of September they crossed the Tweed, raiding as far as the Tyne and almost to our doorstep, resulting in immediate retaliation from the Earl and Harry and Dunbar.

  I heard nothing of Edmund’s fate.

  But now they were come home to celebrate a fortuitous victory, and the anxiety of a waiting wife was draining from me like snow-melt in April. Our retainers were jubilant if sore-headed from their ale-fuelled celebrations. So many faces that I knew. There would also be those missing, those who had not returned. Even a victory had its price to pay, and this had been a more major conflict than the skirmish at Nesbitt Moor.

  Harry was safe. Harry was alive and come home.

  I made my way towards him, taking note that we had prisoners, a cluster of men, disarmed, surly, but glad to be alive, high born by the gilded and incised quality of their armour. They would be ransomed of course, for they were of the highest of Scots blood. Our steward pointed them out to me.

  ‘The Earl of Fife, son of the Regent of Scotland, my lady. Then Lord Montgomery, Sir William Graham, Sir Adam Forster. And there, by their heraldic symbols, three French lords, fighting in the name of Scotland.’

  A valuable hoard, I agreed, for families were rarely slow in paying for the return of their menfolk.

  I considered them, where they stood in a lightly guarded group, moved by the thought that some lady of the household would have welcomed Harry and seen to his comfort after Otterburn. Some unknown lady would have tended his wounds, given him clothing and food, hot water for bathing, for was he not of the most noble birth and reputation? Had she asked if he had a wife at home who would worry about him, a family who would be willing to raise money to see him safely home? I would do the same for these prisoners, for it was my duty and my pleasure. They were the enemy but would have fought with distinction, thus it behoved us here at Alnwick to receive them with chivalric dignity, in recognition of their bravery.

  I passed by the Earl and George Dunbar, acknowledging both, but not stopping. Harry, the one man in all the melee whom I needed to see, had dismounted and was speaking with a man who had been lifted down from a horse-drawn litter, clearly unable either to ride or to rise from his makeshift bed. It never grew any easier, this constant departing and returning from battle. He looked up, his gaze fierce beneath the travel grime.

  ‘Elizabeth.’ He held out his hand to draw me forward for whatever the divisions between us in the privacy of our own chamber, they would not be made public. ‘I found this Scots gentleman lying in the heather. Allow me to make you known to Archibald Douglas. The Earl of Douglas will make his home with us for a time. We will make him as comfortable as we may.’

  I regarded him, a young man perhaps lacking a few years of Harry’s age, but his face, what I could see of it, drawn with exhaustion and pain. Tied around his head to cover half his face was a filthy bandage. His armour removed, his clothing, clearly borrowed, was in a parlous state.

  ‘You are right welcome here, my lord,’ I said.

  I knew of the Earl of Douglas by repute. He was a worthy adversary in the March, although not always the most successful of leaders on the battlefield.

  ‘Not through choice, my lady.’

  His voice might have been cultured beneath the Scots burr if it were not so racked with the humiliation of defeat and an inability to stand on his own feet. The fourth Earl of Douglas would not enjoy this lack of dignity.

  ‘That I know.’ I was tolerant of brusque and suffering prisoners of high blood. ‘But we will soon see you restored to health. I doubt you will be with us long. Someone will want to claim you.’ I smiled down at him, placing my hand over his where it gripped the crude covering. ‘Despite your lack of good manners.’

  He managed a faint smile. ‘My thanks. I would not seem churlish.’

  ‘He’s churlish because he’s been punctured like a colander,’ Harry observed. ‘Five arrows found their mark in him. It’s a miracle he’s alive to be churlish.’

  ‘I understand. I see you lack compassion too from your victor.’ I frowned at Harry. ‘A prisoner in pain does not necessarily have good manners. Even when he needs to win my good offices on his behalf.’

  Now Douglas managed a grating laugh. ‘You need to keep me in good health if you want a financial return on my skin.’

  ‘We will do what we can.’

  What I could only interpret as fear impressed the muscles beside his mouth.

  ‘Can you restore my sight to me? I think that is beyond any man’s miracle.’

  I gestured to Dame Hawisia for her to approach. ‘This is Dame Hawisia who will do her best for you. She has a reputation as a cunning woman.’

  Death and blood and pain. But this year’s prisoner could be next year’s friend. I knew the chivalric code, as did Harry, as I gave orders to the servants to carry the young lord of Douglas into the castle. He was a man of land and power and family who would be more than grateful for his safe return, even without sight in one eye if it proved to be beyond remedy.

  The Earl was at our side, as Archibald Douglas was carried away.

  ‘An excellent haul of prisoners, Douglas particularly. They’ll be pleased to get him back.’ His lips thinned into a smile. ‘It will make amends for the lack of payment from the King. Your recent complaints to him have had little effect, Harry.’

  ‘No effect whatsoever. I never thought it would,’ agreed Harry, who seemed less concerned as he observed the potential income around us. ‘This will defray all our expenses.’

  ‘Douglas will fill your purse with gold,’ the Earl acknowledged.

  Surprising me, overwhelming me, a wave of grief struck so hard, so much that I turned on my heel and followed the source of our gold into the castle. Archibald Douglas would be ransomed and returned to those who loved him. My brother would remain unransomed for all time.

  ‘Elizabeth.’

  This time I took no notice of Harry’s call. All emotions under restraint, I saw Douglas put to bed, his bandages replaced, then took refuge in my still room, looking for something that would give him respite from the pain of the wound to his eye. The Scots lord had been right. There would be no saving the sight but I could give ease from his physical agony if not from his heartache.

  I pounded and mixed, stirred and blended to no avail, despite the raw scents of comfrey, marigold, knapweed and mouse-ear hawkweed. It might ease the pain of wounds gained in battle but there was no ease for my pain, only a sharp sorrow that had made me shiver. My connections with past, present and future seemed to be wearing thin, thinner by the day. I had lost Philippa. Roger was long dead. Edmund was captive. I did not even know if he was wounded although there had been no news that he had suffered in the battle. If no one would rescue him, would I lose him too if Glyn Dwr decided to make an example of him? A public execution might put fear into the marcher lords.

  And then there was Harry.

  Straining the pounded leaves
and stem of St James’s-wort, I mixed the potion with careless application of the spoon; then, having to mop up the drops I had spilt, thought that I would have been better to leave it to Dame Hawisia. Harry had no sense of how I felt. All he could think of was the amount of gold that could be used on the next expedition against the Scots.

  I would not weep. I would not weep.

  Even this morose young man whose face was disfigured would be restored to his family. Did he have a wife? A sister, a mother, who comforted each other in their sorrow?

  In that moment of pounding herbs into a salve I felt alone and without comfort.

  The door was pushed open.

  ‘They said I would find you here.’

  Harry slouched in, leaning back against the bench, picking up leaves and pots, then pushing them aside when I did not respond. I could sense him frowning at my unresponsive back. ‘Do you not have someone to do that for you?’

  ‘Of course. But I can do it just as well,’ continuing to keep my face turned from him. ‘The Earl of Douglas’s eye will be beyond saving. I’m sure you know that. But we can reduce the swelling and save his life. His other body wounds will heal, terrible as they are.’

  ‘Thank you. He was a worthy enemy under atrocious fire.’

  ‘I would hope some lady would do the same for you in similar circumstances.’ I smacked his hand with the spoon when he dipped his finger in a puddle of the decoction. ‘It will purge you faster than the flux if you taste it, so I warn you.’ When he would have touched my cheek lightly, with a laugh, I pulled away. ‘You are safe returned, for which I am glad.’ How dry and unemotional my words sounded. I remembered reunions in the past when we had fallen into each other’s arms. Now I was cold with grief and he was wary.

  ‘I might risk the purge if you were of a mind to welcome me home.’ He grimaced, wiping his fingers down the breast of his doublet. ‘I was hardly put in danger. It was not a battle that I enjoyed.’

  No, he had not. There was something troubling him. The usual euphoria was strangely absent.