Queen of the North

by Anne O'Brien

  ‘Let us hurry.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I have no wish to know what is in Constance’s mind, nor for her to make any attempts to read mine.’

  We made our apologies and started for the north. Constance’s concerns remained unknown to me, and to my relief Alianore was not present, still no doubt furious over the permanent destiny of her Mortimer sons. Harbouring treachery was wearing on the nerves. As for the royal bride, before our departure I curtsied, keeping a curb on my tongue and a welcoming expression. She was tall and gracious, a handsome woman possessing much composure and considerable presence, which would be expected of the Duchess of Brittany. It did not surprise me that Lancaster had considered her a fitting Queen for England.

  ‘I have heard much of you and your family, Lady Percy. It is good to meet with you. The Earl of Worcester has been a welcome escort on my journey here.’

  ‘The Earl of Worcester has been highly complimentary of your ability to weather a storm at sea, my lady,’ I replied, for did she not deserve a welcome from me? ‘It has been a marriage much anticipated by all.’

  She touched the fingers of her right hand to the magnificent jewelled collar bearing the motto Soveignez – Remember Me – that rested on her breast, one of the royal wedding gifts bought with money that Harry thought would have been better spent on a body of archers for Percy use.

  ‘Perhaps you will visit with me,’ she said, ‘when I am settled in London.’

  ‘I would be most gratified, my lady.’

  Her glance sharpened. ‘Yet I see caution in your eye, Lady Percy. Will you tell me why?’

  So she was a woman of some intellect and perspicacity. I should have expected nothing less.

  ‘The world of politics is an uneasy one, my lady.’

  Turning her head, she sought out Harry standing gloomily silent on the edge of a little group of wine-quaffing magnates.

  ‘Sir Henry Percy has an abstracted air about him.’

  ‘More like rank disapproval than an abstraction.’ I could see no reason to deny it, allowing my regard to move to King Henry who was exchanging good wishes with the ageing Bishop of Winchester who had been too ill to conduct the marriage service. Seeing the direction of my gaze, the bride nodded.

  ‘Ah, I understand! There is some disagreement. But if our lords are at odds, it does not necessarily mean that we may not have sensible converse. Are they at odds?’

  ‘Yes.’ I would be as forthright as she, but I sighed a little. ‘It may be that we cannot converse intimately to any degree, my lady.’

  Her touch on my arm was light.

  ‘Then we will see. There is much for me to learn since I know not the politics of this realm. Mayhap you are right.’ She smiled. ‘But indeed, I hope that you are wrong.’

  ‘I fear that I am not, my lady.’

  She turned from me to speak with Worcester, leaving me with some reluctant liking and some regret.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Alnwick Castle: March 1403

  ‘Persuade him,’ I urged Harry.

  ‘And how do you suggest I do that, since we are barely on speaking terms?’

  I did not know how, only that it was essential, for without the concurrence of the Earl of Northumberland in this enterprise, all could fall by the wayside. Glyn Dwr might glitter with present success, the spring weather luring him from Sycharth to attack the Welsh March once more, doubtless Edmund at his side, but to take on the English crown alone and topple Lancaster from his throne would be beyond his powers, as even he would admit.

  ‘You must have some notion,’ I persisted.

  ‘I will do it, in my own good time. But don’t interfere.’

  I knew better than to do so. I would leave it to Harry, even though my fingers itched to become involved. There were couriers, there were letters received and dispatched. There were raised voices, raking through all the old arguments of where Percy loyalty should lie, until I was weary of it. All I could see was our facile agreement with Glyn Dwr and my brother being ground into dust beneath the Earl’s intransigence.

  ‘Tell him we’ll go to war without him,’ I said in the end in a moment of unfortunate flippancy.

  ‘I’ll not. And nor will you.’

  So I did nothing until the Earl of Worcester led his smart entourage beneath the entrance to our formidable barbican, and Harry summoned me from my morning tasks.

  ‘So now come and watch. And listen, faithless one. This is how it is done.’

  ‘And what would we be doing in the Postern Tower?’ I asked as I accompanied him across the bailey to the distant corner of the curtain wall.

  ‘Indulging in nefarious alliances, if I am not mistaken.’

  Thus the three Percy lords met in the privacy of the Postern Tower where no one would disturb them, as they had so many times before. Northumberland. Worcester. Sir Henry. They were dressed for leisure, great magnates taking their ease in leather and fine wool. Three powerful and wealthy men with family interests to discuss. No weapons; no elements of war were present. A brindled hound curled by the hearth. And one Percy wife sat at the window, astonished that we had ever come to this point of agreement.

  The Percy magnates clasped hands.

  No oath made, no words of intent spoken. A silent Percy agreement that was unshakable. Owain Glyn Dwr had his alliance. The Earl of March had his army that could bring him to the throne.

  I watched them as I dispensed cups of wine to seal the intent, for there were no servants present.

  What had, in the end, persuaded the Earl? What had finally tipped him over the edge from royal counsellor into treason? A dislike of Lancaster’s high-handedness. A detestation of being called to account for his son’s behaviour, the humiliation of it all when Harry was his own man and followed his own inclinations. The royal expectation that the Percy family would continue to protect the north at their own expense. It had been wearing away at Percy pride for many months now.

  Yet nothing would have finally spurred him into this hand clasp more than our cunning King recently transferring the captaincy of Roxburgh Castle from Harry to the Neville Earl of Westmorland; another dent to Percy hegemony in the Scottish border. Oh, King Henry was generous in return; the Earl of Northumberland and his heirs were granted a tract of land covering the greater part of southern Scotland, claimed by the English crown. Until a Percy looked below the surface of the grant. This land that was to be ours had yet to be captured from the Scots. At Percy expense.

  ‘We are being used as pawns in Lancaster’s clever game, with Westmorland as his knight,’ was all the Earl said. ‘We’ll be pawns no longer.’

  And perhaps the Earl enjoyed the vision of himself as the dragon, sweeping down from the north to join with Glyn Dwr and Mortimer to call the King to account. It was a dramatic picture that he would surely enjoy.

  Why Worcester? Covertly I watched him in communication with his brother and nephew. A quiet, contemplative man whose loyalty to the crown was as strong and apparently immovable as the stone walls that surrounded us. The most unlikely of plotters. I did not know why he had thrown in his lot with this insurrection. I could only hazard a guess since he never explained, but I presumed that it was Percy blood being stronger than any water that Lancaster could offer, however jewelled the cup.

  So it was done, with a hand clasp and a silent toast, while my mind was full of an image for the future. The Great Hall at Westminster, hung with the gold and blue of Mortimer banners and cloth of gold. Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, crowned King Edmund. Beside him the Percy lords in velvet and ermine and gold chains. Sir Edmund Mortimer too. And Prince Owain Glyn Dwr, a most valuable ally. A tight-knit family that would rule England well through my mother Philippa’s royal blood.

  And I? I too stood in the Mortimer and Percy throng, striking in coronation robes. There would be no official recognition of me, no chain of office, no staff or sword of power, but I would have the ear of those who counselled and advised. I would have a voice in my ne
phew’s education in his early years, to make of him an impressive man and King. I knew it could be done. When Richard had first been crowned at ten years, who had played a firm hand in those early, dangerous years? His mother Joan, Countess of Kent, held no position on the Royal Council, but her voice did not go without a hearing. A woman of strong will and royal ambition, she had been a force to be reckoned with in the regency. So would I be. So would I have a presence in the midst of these magnates. Was it not my right?

  It was a powerful image, blinding me to what would have to come before such magnificence could be enacted.

  ‘Are you satisfied?’ Harry asked in the end. The Earl and Worcester had climbed to the wall, looking south, still deep in planning, while Harry and I walked back to the practice yard where Hal’s noisy efforts with sword and shield could be heard. ‘You look like the cat finishing off the cream.’

  I ran my tongue over my lips. ‘And the cream was superb, more than you will ever know.’

  ‘I know it well enough.’

  There was more than mere satisfaction or anticipation of the coming call to arms in Harry’s stance. It would help him lift the lingering guilt over Richard’s death from his shoulders, and perhaps from mine too.

  If, later, I contemplated anything of that meeting in the Postern Tower, it was that Dunbar was not one of our number. Dunbar who had been hand in glove with us in so many campaigns of recent years. But then, he was not a Percy. It did not concern me.

  The only question now: when would it happen? What would give our conspiracy the order to start, to blossom into an enterprise that would fire the whole kingdom?

  Spring merged dulcetly into summer; as we waited, the Percy family went about its normal occupations of making excursions into the territory of the border Scots. While for me, a small distraction: a letter, one I would normally have relished but which now with rebellion hovering seemed so unimportant. My eye skimmed where once it would have absorbed every detail.

  To my dearest sister Elizabeth,

  I had hoped to meet up with you at the Winchester wedding but we did not travel. Affairs here in the Welsh March are too unpredictable and my lord Edward was not in a celebratory mood.

  I read on, seeking out gems from Alianore’s wordy communication. Her husband’s refusal to attend the wedding was hardly news, or unexpected.

  Glyn Dwr is at large with the fine weather. We have recently lost our castles at Usk and Caerleon and have not the money to raise a force to reclaim them. At least he has now turned his eye on bigger fish and has ambitions to capture the royal fortresses. We hear that he has taken Carmarthen.

  So our Welsh prince was not waiting on Percy involvement. He had a driving force within him as strong as Harry’s.

  I could all but smell Alianore’s unease in the next paragraph. It seeped from the ink.

  You will know about Edmund’s volte face, of course. I wish that I had conversation with you so that I might know your own mind. I cannot deny his willingness to support the Mortimer claim, but to do so in the company of Glyn Dwr, who is our sworn enemy in the March, is quite another spoon in the dish. I cannot speak of this with my lord. He damns both of them since he wants no success for Glyn Dwr, and sees no possibility of any for Edmund.

  We are not a happy household.

  Do you support our brother in this outrageous marriage to the Welsh girl? What does Harry say?

  What indeed? I had not told her that we had joined the side of insurrection, nor would I until it became reality. It would not do for the King to be warned by casual gossip. Besides, nothing might still come of it. We might have debated an alliance with Glyn Dwr over a pot of ale, we might have clasped Percy hands in alliance, but we had yet to raise our banners in support of Edmund and Glyn Dwr. Harry and the King might yet mend their crippled fences.

  I read rapidly down the rest of the sheet. Family affairs for the most part. The two boys still at Berkhamsted; at least the King was considerate enough to send Alianore regular reports on their health and education. Plans for the marriages of the two girls. Alianore’s hopes for another child, for a son for her marcher lord. The King was at Kennington, planning further campaigns, rumours of foul moods abounding. I presumed I knew the cause of that.

  I trust all is well with you.

  Your sister in love and family,

  Alianore

  Disappointed that there was so little here that I did not already know, I was in the action of folding the sheet to peruse again later when the final scrawl caught my eye, as if it had been added as an afterthought. And in it two names, entirely familiar to me, which made me stop and read the final lines in the letter again. And then a third time.

  So Alianore’s news was not without its interest after all. I kept the information in my thoughts. The involvements of Constance of York I cast aside. But the machinations of the Earl of Dunbar, a man I had never warmed to, were an entirely different matter.

  Alnwick Castle: Late June 1403

  I was on the wall-walk, taking some much-needed air after a fraught hour, looking down to where Harry, still mounted, was looking up. Apprised of his coming some hours ago, outside the walls was a surprising array of soldiery, close on a hundred to my eye, while within, in the bailey, Harry’s personal retinue jostled for room. This was not to be a lengthy sojourn but a brief stop on the way to somewhere that was causing Harry concern. I cast my mind over any recent news. There was nothing to stir alarm in me, other than the usual rumblings in the west where Glyn Dwr was on the offensive.

  ‘Where are you going?’ I called down.

  ‘I, my lady, am going to Chester.’

  I walked down the stairs, lifting my skirts from the dust, pushing aside a hound with my knee. The last I had known of Harry’s doings, he was deep in the siege of the peel tower of Cocklaw to the north, no doubt frustrated into outbursts of temper by its stern resistance, and shadowed by Dunbar who had returned to our company. Who was not, as far as I could see, here with us today. So Harry had rid himself of his shadow. I was unsure whether this would be good news or bad. Meanwhile, he was casting an eye over me.

  ‘You look as if you have been in an argument.’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Is that why two of my best ostlers are at this moment sitting in the stocks?’

  ‘It could be.’ I had spent an hour giving jurisdiction in a number of disputes in the Percy household. ‘A fight over a kitchen wench that disturbed everyone, with a black eye, a probably broken nose and some smashed jugs and beakers. They were still crying their innocence when I dispatched them to sober up and lament their sins.’ I frowned over to the little crowd that had gathered by the stables. ‘I expect you will be inundated with demands for justice from their fellow ostlers.’

  ‘They’ll get short shrift from me.’ Harry’s scowl sent them hopping out of his sight. ‘You are lord of Alnwick when I and my father are absent.’ All delivered in a carrying voice so that no one would be in doubt of it. Not that my authority was ever questioned. I accepted it – so did the household. But sometimes it was hard for these northern menfolk to accept a decree from a woman, and not a Percy by birth.

  ‘If I had given judgement, I would have kept them confined twice as long.’ Harry continued to frown at his offending servants.

  ‘You don’t know how long I have condemned them to their humiliation,’ I advised. ‘They will still be there at cockcrow tomorrow, until I decide to release them.’

  He laughed.

  ‘Why Chester?’ Now I was on a level and conversation at a normal volume was possible as I stroked my hand over his horse’s gleaming flank with one hand, my other on his gloved hand in silent greeting. We were all suffering from the heat. ‘I have heard nothing other than that Glyn Dwr has taken Usk and Caerleon from Edward Charleton, who is not pleased. The King is at Kennington.’

  ‘Not for long, I wager.’ Harry had dismounted, beating summer dust from his jerkin, having dispensed with his heavy gambeson, passing his gloves to me. ‘By Go
d, I’ve had enough of sieges and this sweating heat.’ He held out his hand to a passing servant, relieving him of a leather bottle of ale. ‘My gullet is parched, and dry with useless negotiation. God’s Blood!’ He drank, wiping his mouth on his sleeve with smeary effect. ‘Give me a battle any day where we can make an impact. A siege draws my blood like a physician’s leech.’

  Beyond the walls I could now hear the approaching bleat of sheep and the low of distressed cattle.

  ‘You seem to have provided us with meat for a twelve-month.’

  ‘And that’s all I’ve got out of weeks of campaigning. It makes me have sympathy with Lancaster’s last abortive campaign in Wales.’ He stooped to rub his cheek against my coif in a little intimacy that stole with delight through my blood. ‘We need a plain battle, to draw the Scots into the open and bring them to heel, but they’ve withdrawn behind their walls. Much as I’d do in the circumstances, but thrice-damned Cocklaw drains us like an ulcer on the arse.’

  So he had not enjoyed the lack of action. But I still did not know why he would march across the country to Chester.

  ‘Where’s the Earl?’ I asked, since he had not returned with his son.

  I moved to stand at his horse’s head, taking the reins as Harry, in the absence of a squire, began to unbuckle the saddle.

  ‘Still north in the borders. The last I heard he was writing yet another missive to King Henry to grant us moneys for our efforts, calling on all their past friendships. A last-ditch stand that will achieve nothing, even if he kneels at the royal feet and bends his forehead to the dust.’ Harry’s mouth twisted into a sneer. ‘All Lancaster has to hand, that was not spent on the dower of his foreign Queen, will have been sent off to the Prince to hold Wales in subjection and rid himself of Glyn Dwr. Not with any great success if Charleton is suffering from incursions.’ The unbuckling was complete; a squire arrived to take over.