by Anne O'Brien
‘Was it not a victory?’
‘Oh, yes. But nothing to my glory.’ He brushed it aside, a thought that he did not wish to consider, as if it had played on his mind for too long. ‘There’s something I need you to know.’
‘I know what it is.’ Since his thoughts were still with the battle, I went back to my pounding and measuring. ‘The Earl said it clear enough. The ransom for these Scottish lords will pay for the lack of financial appreciation from King Henry.’
‘No. That’s not it, although it’s true enough.’ Harry caught my hand, stilling it on the bench. ‘Listen to me. The Earl’s ransom will provide an answer to one of our problems.’
‘Only one? We seemed to be beset by problems before you went away.’
‘Put that down.’ He took the spoon from my free hand. ‘Look at me.’
I did as I was bid but my soul was still heavy.
‘Do you have a purpose for this vast sum?’ I asked. ‘Another campaign against the Scots?’
‘I do have a purpose. Here is our means—’
‘I am not interested in your purpose and your means. Did you know this? One of Dunbar’s captains had what I could only think was a pleasure in telling me. Did you know too? My cousin Henry has managed – by some unfathomable means – to raise the money to ransom Lord Grey of Ruthin, another of Glyn Dwr’s captives. It was an exorbitant sum, but my cousin managed to count out the gold coin with barely a shudder, because Grey is useful to him in the March. Yet he will not ransom Edmund.’
Harry was arrested. ‘I did not know.’
‘Well, now you do. So don’t tell me how you will spend your ransom money on yet another campaign against the Scots.’
Freeing my hand from his, I made to leave the room, carrying the pot of liquid, until Harry, lounging no longer, stood in my way; he took the pot from me, set it down with a thump that threatened the perfection of the vessel, and closed the door.
‘You are more difficult than a score of imprisoned Scots. This large sum paid for the release of Archibald Douglas by the grateful hand of his grieving royal wife and children is our means of ransoming your brother.’
I stood quite still. Taking in what he had said. What he was still saying.
‘If the King will not do it, Elizabeth, then I will. Here is the money to hand, in the form of Archibald Douglas, whom you…’
I will not weep. I will not weep.
I could not speak.
‘Elizabeth…’
‘Thank you. Thank you.’
‘I know it hit you hard.’
‘I thought you did not care how hard it hit.’
‘Of course I care.’ He took me into his arms and I allowed it, even though we were squashed between workbench and cupboard. ‘You have been so angry.’
‘I know. And today I felt alone.’
‘You are never alone. And when I am not with you in body, you have the spirit to know that I love you and will return.’
‘You rejected my concerns. You abandoned all my arguments that my nephew should be King.’
I felt him sigh, his breath stirring my coif, puffing fragments of pounded herbs into the air. ‘I did. I still do. He is too young. And before you talk about regencies, who would you have as regent?’
‘You?’ I would even appeal to his own sense of family pride.
‘Or Edmund. Or one of the York litter,’ Harry said. ‘Have sense, Elizabeth. That should stick in your craw as much as it does in mine. A more ambitious family I have yet to meet, and a more untrustworthy one. England is too unsteady to gamble our future on a nine-year-old boy and a clamouring pack of royal cousins. At least Henry can lead an army into battle. And he’s powerful enough to hold the pack at bay.’
‘I know all of that, but the longer he is King, the tighter his hold on the realm will become. I thought you were dissatisfied.’
‘I am. More than you will ever know. But not enough to follow your path.’ He huffed again. ‘Will this divide us for ever, Elizabeth? Will you not at least meet me halfway? I can’t support the Mortimer claim, but I can restore your brother to you.’
I wept a little after all.
‘I have had a thought,’ I said when I had dried my tears on my sleeve.
‘I knew you would. That the King will not like it.’ Our minds were moving together again. ‘I have an easy solution. We’ll not tell him until it’s done.’
‘Is it not treason?’
‘I expect it is. But we’ll be forgiven fast enough. King Henry needs us.’
We stood for a moment in perfumed unity, dust motes falling silently in unceasing glitter from the sun, all the worries and heartache dissipating as our breathing fell into a familiar rhythm. We were at one again, and I would allow nothing to destroy that.
‘And another thought,’ I said, for my mind could not finally rest. ‘What will the Earl say, if you use the money to ransom Edmund?’
Harry seemed untroubled. ‘Douglas is my captive, not the Earl’s. I am free to dispose of him and the resulting payment as I see fit.’
My heart was light, lighter than it had been for some time, when Harry released me, retrieved the pot and placed it in my hands, folding my hands around it as if it were the Holy Grail and he Sir Galahad.
‘And now you had better take this foul-smelling draught or potion or whatever it is to our prisoner. Or we will have no Earl of Douglas to ransom.’
Yes, my contentment was much restored but in the coming days the black birds still kept their vigil on our towers. The white owl continued to swoop and screech. Dame Hawisia scowled and muttered about unseen and unknown horrors to come. Harry’s presence strengthened me, but still I shivered when the rooks descended in their menacing cloud.
The Earl of Douglas was dosed and asleep. Hal and Bess had been reunited noisily with Harry; Bess’s rook-induced fears magically dispelled with the return of her glorious father, Hal keen on hearing every detail of the campaign and explaining his lack of fear when the black birds troubled us. Now the children were restored to their own household while Harry was in the armoury, taking note of the notches that marred the once fine blade of his favourite sword. It would need a smith’s skill to hammer it again into battle readiness.
‘It has been well used,’ I said, leaning beside him, much as he had leaned beside me in my herbal still room. I had brought wine with me, pushing a cup towards him. Perhaps he would be persuaded to tell me about this battle, what it was that had not pleased him.
‘Not as well as you would think,’ he said.
I waited. He would tell me in his own good time.
He found no enjoyment in what had been circling in his thoughts. The statements that came were crisp and laconic, as if he were giving a report to a senior commander. ‘It was at Homildon Hill. You know the place. The Scots took up their position on the hill. It was in my mind to order our cavalry to charge head-on and dislodge them.’
‘Much like Edmund at Bryn Glas.’
‘Much like Edmund.’ His lips twisted before settling into a rueful smile. ‘I was suffused by memories of my inglorious capture at Otterburn in the moonlight. I would have my revenge. It was the obvious way, or so I thought – to attack and scatter the enemy.’
He lifted the sword, as if he saw an enemy against whom he would use it, so that light shimmered along its disfigured blade.
‘Yet you did not.’
‘It was the Earl who refused. So did Dunbar. The use of archers was Dunbar’s strategy and he has a persuasive tongue. Nothing to be gained in a mounted attack uphill, he said. Use archers instead. So that’s what we did and all I could do was sit tight and wait out the effect of the arrow storm against our foe. Oh, it worked. It worked gloriously well.’ Carefully he placed the sword down, leaning on his hands to study the still-fine engraving. ‘All was confusion, disarray and ultimately death with arrows raining down upon our enemy, but I felt cheated.’ He stopped and looked fully at me. ‘All my life I have been raised to think of battles being won by knight
s in armour, fighting with all their prowess, to prove their strength and courage in battle. Knight against knight until the strongest won. I did not expect to sit at the rear and allow archers to do my fighting for me from a distance. Yes, we won. It was a superb victory. My father and Dunbar celebrated. But for me it was a humiliation. Do you understand?’
‘Yes.’
Knowing Harry, of course I understood.
‘And Dunbar was crowing his triumph.’
‘I understand that too.’
Thrusting the sword aside, he drank morosely.
‘You must learn patience in your old age,’ I said. ‘You do not always have to charge at the enemy.’
‘Old age? I am in the prime of my life.’
He was thirty-eight years old.
‘Prove it,’ I said, and my thoughts were not on the battlefield.
‘By God, do I believe what I’m hearing? I won’t do it!’
Harry’s roar could be heard from some distance. The windows were open, the weather mild and we had moved to our preferred home at Warkworth. There, following, was the softer rumble of the Earl’s voice. I could not hear what he said, but Harry’s reply was clear enough, even more forceful than the first.
‘And I’m not of a mind to travel all the way south to explain why I will not!’
I had been speaking with Archibald Douglas who was concerned at the perennial slowness in setting up an exchange of prisoners. He was strong enough now to sit in a chair, lightly clothed in one of Harry’s tunics, but he had indeed lost an eye when an arrow had penetrated the guard on his helm. His sight would always be compromised, but he accepted it with an astonishing degree of equanimity. The arrow wounds scattered about his body were healing fast.
I sat at his side on a cushioned stool in the private garden, helping him to while away an hour. He was not one for reading and time hung heavily for him, much like Harry if some ailment kept him abed. We were enjoying Dunbar’s absence, having discovered that his habit of pronouncing majestically on every issue raised in conversation was unacceptable to both of us.
‘You must be patient,’ I said when we had exhausted our criticism of Dunbar.
‘If only I could ride.’
‘You cannot yet.’
‘Hotspur would let me try.’
I grinned. ‘Hotspur does not oversee your convalescence.’
‘So I know who rules here at Warkworth. Much like my wife at home.’
‘She will miss you. And you have children?’
‘Four. The youngest born the month before Homildon Hill.’
‘Tell me about your royal wife. Lady Margaret Stewart.’
But his thoughts could not be distracted. ‘I can ride. And I’ll fight again. I’m not the first knight to lose an eye and I won’t be the last. If you can get your husband to chivvy the negotiations.’ He cocked his chin at the clash of will beyond our pleasant refuge. The Percy lords were in one of the ground-floor chambers in the Grey Mare’s Tail Tower, attached to the east wall. ‘Although now might not be the best of times.’
‘Perhaps not.’
I decided that I might investigate. Harry’s temper tended towards volatility, but what had stirred him to this? I doubted that it would be Worcester’s doing since his visits were always equable pools in the torrent of everyday life. Yet here was a very public display of disgust being exhibited in one of the main antechambers where a messenger stood at a distance in proximity to the door for a fast departure, the Earl with the delivered message in his hand and Harry stalking the floor, his bright hair aflame. The messenger, I noted, was a royal one. The message bore King Henry’s seal. Worcester simply stood by the window, arms folded, chin lowered to the furred neck of his tunic.
‘What?’ Harry demanded as I entered.
‘The whole household can hear you,’ I said. ‘And probably in Alnwick too.’
‘I care not. I will not do it.’
‘What will you not do?’ I opened a door into a more private chamber, its windows offering views of the river rather than the bailey. ‘It might be more politic to discuss it in here, if you are going to be rude about the King again.’
Harry stalked through, the Earl and Worcester followed, Worcester with a wry smile, while I directed the messenger, much relieved, to make a fast retreat.
‘He overreaches himself. He oversteps his right. This is not tradition. It is not justice. He might demand, but I am under no compulsion to obey.’
So this was King Henry’s doing. ‘Will you allow me to read it?’ I asked the Earl, holding out my hand for the offending missive.
But the Earl crushed it in his hand. ‘Henry orders us to send our captives to London. All our captives.’ His mouth shut like a rat-trap. The document was cast to the floor.
I looked to Harry for further enlightenment but I could already understand his anger.
‘We are forbidden by the King to ransom our own captives.’ Worcester’s soft voice made all plain.
‘Which he can do, I suppose,’ I said, my eye on my husband who still fumed. ‘Because he is King.’
My calming words had no result. Not that I expected one.
Harry thumped his fist against the armoire in passing, making the door hinges squeak. ‘Has it not always been the law of the battlefield? Of war? That the victor ransom his prisoners personally, to their comfort and his own financial advantage? King Henry will not fulfil his monetary obligations to us. He will not ransom Mortimer. But he denies our right to raise money from our own efforts on the battlefield where we have fought in his name.’ He scooped up the crushed document, tossing it from hand to hand, the seal already shattered in the Earl’s fist. ‘Here he demands that we turn our prisoners over to him. God’s Blood! I’ll not do it.’
I slid a glance towards the Earl, whose expression was shuttered as closely as a storm lantern.
‘I expect the King will summon us to meet him in parliament, escorting our prisoners. He has called one for the last day of September.’ The Earl tried to look mildly contemplative, but failed. ‘We will be expected to be there.’
‘He’ll not see me there, by God! Or my prisoners.’
‘I don’t agree with you.’ The Earl cast himself into a chair by the window, his brows a solid bar above his nose. ‘I think we must comply.’
Harry looked as astonished as I. It was Harry who responded with unfilial heat.
‘Comply? You will go along with this travesty of justice? What are you saying? Will I see you marching south to deliver your prisoners to Henry’s door? I suppose you will kneel in cowardly gratitude at the same time!’
‘I will give him the courtesy due to my King. I will consider the wisdom of acceptance. It will stir more trouble than it’s worth if we don’t.’
‘More trouble? How can there be more trouble?’
‘If we stand against him, he’ll bolster Westmorland power against us. I’ll pursue no policy that will encourage the King to extend Westmorland’s control or put more castles into his hands.’
‘He’s not wrong, Harry,’ Worcester advised. ‘If Westmorland gains more at your expense—’
‘Let him try,’ Harry broke in. ‘There’ll be no bending of my knee on this royal command. I have tolerated too much for too long…’
‘Now is not the time to demand more.’ The Earl pushed himself to his feet to approach his son. ‘I warn you, Harry…’
‘Warn me? Warn me of what?’
The Earl visibly took a breath; his voice mellowed but the atmosphere in the room retained the temperature of the smith’s forge. ‘It is in my mind to take my own prisoners to Whitehall and bend my knee – as you put it – before his royal demands. I suggest that it would be best for everyone if you – and your prisoners – were with me.’
‘You might suggest it, but I will not.’
‘Will you defy me too, as well as your King?’
Never had I seen father and son in so headlong a clash of will, like autumn rams fighting for supremacy on the norther
n hills.
‘I will, sir. You can make my apologies to our puissant King. I see what this is. Henry has an itch that must be scratched. His campaign in Wales was a disaster, however he might write it. All he got out of it was a herd of miserable cattle, sore feet and waterlogged tents, including his own that was demolished on top of him in a gale. A shame one of the tent poles did not knock some generosity into his stubborn head, I’d say. He’ll not allow our success at Homildon Hill to be lauded in comparison with his failure. He intends to share in our glory, and he wants the money. I see what he wants. He would get Douglas from me.’
‘Then let him have Douglas,’ Worcester sighed, ‘and win the King’s everlasting gratitude.’
‘Oh, no. I’ve done enough to win the King’s gratitude to last me a lifetime.’ Harry cast the letter at his father’s feet. ‘Take the rest if you will, go and bend the knee and smile as he strips you of your ransoms, but Douglas does not go. And neither do I.’
The Earl inhaled visibly once more.
‘I command you, Harry. You will do as I bid you.’
‘Command? You will command me? Then you are destined to be disappointed, my lord.’
‘I doubt the Earl of Douglas is well enough to travel,’ I said, pouring a merest drop of oil on this blistering confrontation.
‘Good.’ Father and son still faced each other like boar and hunting dog. ‘If you feel you need an excuse, my lord father, tell the King that our noble prisoner was like to die on the journey. Douglas stays here.’
Harry marched out, in no better mood than he had marched in. Worcester decided to follow him, leaving me to face the Earl who was no less angry but with all the control of age and experience that had escaped his son. For the first time I detected the merest plea in his eye as he addressed me, but it was well hidden, his voice still raven harsh.
‘It would gratify me, Elizabeth, if you could use your powers of persuasion to bring him round to what is only good sense.’
‘On this matter I doubt that I can. You saw how he reacted. He will not give Douglas into the King’s hands.’
The Earl’s lips thinned into as close a sneer as he would allow.
