Queen of the North

by Anne O'Brien

‘And where is our friend my lord of Dunbar?’ I enquired, in the light of my enhanced mistrust of the man, thanks to Alianore’s busy writings.

  Harry pointed somewhere vaguely north. ‘I’m not right certain. And neither do I care too much. At least he is not dogging my footsteps. Elizabeth – I need to talk with you. But first, here’s someone you will be pleased to see.’ I raised my hand to acknowledge Archibald Douglas who had just ridden in and dismounted, his scarred face immediately responding in a smile. ‘I’ve released him, by the by. He’s a free man.’

  ‘But still riding in your retinue.’ I tucked my hand in Harry’s arm to lead him out of the fray, my curiosity getting the better of me. ‘Presumably it is in his interests. What have you promised him?’

  ‘We have an understanding. I’ve promised him the town of Berwick if he and his men will support my cause.’

  So this was serious indeed. I kept my reply measured, as if Harry giving away a prize possession was an everyday occurrence. I wondered if his father was in agreement, or even if he knew. I had the impression that father and son communicated less than in the past, despite the tacit pledging of joint support.

  ‘Which Lancaster will not like,’ I observed.

  ‘Lancaster will not be in a position to object.’

  ‘Quite a cost for you to pay, for Douglas’s allegiance. Will you really give up Berwick?’

  ‘Yes, I will, if we can win the day. I can’t stay long.’ We were into the relative cool of the entrance hall. ‘Will we ever have this conversation?’

  Harry’s immediacy began to destroy my composure, the blaze of excitement as bright as his hair. This urgency in Harry was a new thing. There was a shimmer of energy around him, a fire that had been lacking over the months since our meeting with Glyn Dwr, or at least when in my company. It now seemed to me that his planning had come to fruition.

  We were alone in a shadowy corner of the hall, where there were seats set for those who wished to take their ease beside a painted screen, the noise distant, the light muted when Harry faced me.

  ‘Lancaster might be sitting tight,’ Harry said, ‘but Glyn Dwr is not. He’s on the move against royal strongholds. His home at Sycharth has been burned to the ground before being looted by the Prince. He’ll not be best pleased.’

  The news jolted me. I recalled the surprising elegance of his home, loved and furnished over the years, the breath of history in its walls. I recalled the welcome we had received, and was regretful that it had been reduced to ashes, momentarily wondering where Margaret and her daughters had taken refuge.

  ‘He’s taken Carmarthen. So Alianore says,’ I said.

  ‘Has he now? Even better then, that I should shake out the Percy banners and make my allegiance clear to all. We should wait no longer.’

  ‘Why now?’ I asked, out of curiosity, refusing to allow the sudden spurt of fear to surface. What had changed in recent weeks? Nothing to my mind, but something had set its spur to Harry. And I should of course have guessed.

  ‘I’ve had my bellyful of sieges and it gets us nowhere. We sit and watch. We fire arrows and they fire back. We negotiate with no end result. That’s no life. Within a decade I’ll be too old to mount a horse and draw a sword. Better to live my life to the full now, to drain the cup, than to wait until it contains a few paltry drops.’ His gaze that held mine was uncommonly solemn in its utter conviction. ‘If we are going to act on our proposed allegiance, it should be now. If we believe in the Mortimer cause, then why hold back longer? I vowed to do it, and so I will.’

  A frisson of excitement, of achievement, that at last it would be done. But there was the hook of fear.

  ‘You will join Glyn Dwr in open rebellion,’ I said. ‘You will actually do it.’

  He rubbed his hands over his face before raking his fingers through his hair. I thought it had been a difficult decision, but there was a relief in him now that it was made.

  ‘I’m going to Chester to muster an army powerful enough to hold Lancaster to account. The Cheshire archers will readily join me. Still many believe that Richard is alive and well in Scotland, despite Lancaster exhibiting his body to prove the point that he is dead and now buried. I can use that to my own advantage in a rising against Lancaster. The men of Cheshire have a loyalty to me.’

  Would he have asked my opinion about this dangerous move? Probably not. And yet I might have hoped that he would. Restless, moody, robbed of action in the field, even now longing to be on the move, he was reduced to twitching a tapestry into line here, moving a chess piece indiscriminately on a board set out for a contest if anyone was of a mind to sit and play while I sat and watched him. These chessmen had not been used for many a month.

  ‘We’ll do it, Elizabeth.’ He was returned to stand before me for a little while.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘You know right well what is in my heart.’

  ‘Why would I not fight for my Mortimer wife?’

  He linked his fingers with mine, halting long enough for me to be able to carry his hand to my cheek in a gratitude I could barely express.

  ‘But will you have enough support?’ I asked, anxiety keen in the fact that I should ask at all. ‘To face both Lancaster and the Prince in the March? Young he might be, but you have said he is as able as any when it comes to tactics and strategy.’

  Harry’s shrug was an easy gesture, full of confidence. ‘He’s good but we’ll be better, with a force that cannot be brushed aside. I’ll march south through Yorkshire and recruit from my own lands as I go. I hear that the Archbishop of York and some uncertain clergy will not be averse to a Mortimer line of succession. My uncle Worcester will meet me in Chester. My father will follow from Tadcaster when he has raised his own tenants. We will send out letters under our own seals to call in all men who question Lancaster’s right.’

  ‘It is all planned.’

  ‘It is all planned.’

  In that moment I did not know whether to be horrified at how far and how quickly it had all come together, or grateful that at last my family would achieve the recognition that belonged to it. Harry was oblivious to the fluctuations in my mind, nor did I burden him with them. Indeed, I was angry that now, at the last, my own convictions were found to be resting on a shaky foundation. It was so easy to foresee the future, the wrong King replaced with the right one. It was so hard for a woman to send her lord off to war, knowing the risks, accepting them but dreading them too.

  ‘I’ve had a siege in which to let my mind plot and plan,’ Harry was explaining as he flung himself astride a settle. ‘I’ll join forces with your brother and Glyn Dwr, and with such power at our disposal, Lancaster won’t be able to withstand us. We’ll take Shrewsbury, garrison the castle, and then we’ll hold the March.’

  He was still sidestepping the mention of conflict in the field, so I would ask the plain question: ‘Do you envisage facing Lancaster on a battlefield?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I waited, considering the terrible destructive quality of a battle, cousin against cousin, Plantagenet blood against Plantagenet blood; but that was not a matter to exercise Harry’s practical thoughts. He was already seeing some far-flung battlefield on which he could deploy his troops.

  ‘We’ll have a substantial force, but it will be the archers who hold the key.’ I saw that he had thought it out, seeing a battle at the end of this. My fingers were linked tightly beneath the folds of my skirt. ‘I saw that at Homildon Hill,’ he continued. ‘The archers had such devastating power, the knights were barely needed. I have to say it went ill with me on that day, but so it was. It’s the only way. And no better time.’

  There it was. A battle, subject against King. Treachery, plotted by the kingmakers in the north.

  ‘Were you going to ask me what I thought?’ I managed a smile.

  ‘No. I thought I knew what you thought. But I will, if you wish.’

  Hitching my skirts I went to sit opposite him, face to face.

  ‘And if I advise against it?’ />
  ‘I’ll listen. As I’ve listened all my life.’ He leaned to touch my cheek in a moment of unutterable tenderness. ‘You won’t change my mind, though. You know that.’ His smile was wry. ‘For good or ill, when my mind is latched to a plan, it is hard to dislodge.’

  ‘Like a tick on a hound. Impossible, I would say.’

  ‘Nor do I think you would wish to. These are merely foolish fancies at the eleventh hour, Elizabeth. You are as committed as I.’

  I thought about the future that we could not see, of all that might go wrong. All that could be achieved. But to send him off to battle with no word of warning would be a lack in me as a wife. Yet what need for me to worry? This was no different from all the other times Harry had ridden from my door to fight. An arrow fired during a siege would be just as fatal as a sword thrust in battle. This was his métier. This was what he must do with all the extravagance of which he was capable.

  ‘Well?’ he asked, jaw tilted.

  ‘Go and join Glyn Dwr and fight for what we believe in.’

  ‘I will, in your name and my own.’

  ‘Amen.’

  There was the lightest of scratches on the reverse of the screen to catch our attention.

  ‘Hal?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Probably. But he usually applies his fist unless his tutor is watching him. He has not yet learned the power of discretion.’

  But it was not our son, rather Dame Hawisia who appeared to destroy our privacy.

  ‘Do you need me?’ I was reluctant to be disturbed by some household matter over which our steward could ably decide.

  Dame Hawisia shuffled around me to where Harry still sat. ‘I came to see my lord Harry.’

  ‘Then come, for he will not be with us long. My lord leaves for Chester.’

  ‘I have come to read the signs for you, my lord.’

  I sighed, while Harry grinned. Dame Hawisia read the signs with great frequency for any who would listen and reward her with a coin.

  ‘I care not for signs, Hawisia,’ he said, although gently enough. ‘Unless it be the great comet that we have all seen and interpreted, for so Hotspur will dash across the battlefield to bring King Henry to his doom.’

  Dame Hawisia’s mouth disappeared into a mesh of wrinkles as if she consigned such signs in the heavens to perdition. ‘Yet I would read them, sir. If you will permit me.’

  ‘If you wish.’

  I sat again, expecting Dame Hawisia’s usual preparations for scrying which I should perhaps have discouraged if the maids had not enjoyed being told of their future lovers’ good looks and abilities to seduce them into bed. A bowl, a ewer of water, a bag removed from her sleeve to scatter the contents on the surface in which she would draw patterns with her clever fingers. But none of that. Yes, she extracted what was needed from her sleeve but this was round, small, wrapped in soft leather. Unwrapping it she held it in her hand.

  ‘What is it?’ I enquired. I had never seen it before.

  ‘A shew-stone, my lady. For heavy predictions. If you will hold it in your hands, my lord, so that your essence might warm it.’

  The stone was dark and hard, even darker in this shadowy place, like some species of quartz that emitted no light, but Dame Hawisia had no doubts in her skill to show Harry his future. While Harry did as he was bid, holding it between his palms with good patience, I considered the advisability of this. Good news would be welcome, of course. But what if it was not? Yet I could hardly snatch it from her and deny her this moment of Harry’s attention that she so rarely enjoyed these days. I found myself smiling. It was only an old woman, desiring to exhibit her skills, becoming the centre of her lord’s interest. A woman who would read good fortune for her nurseling of years ago.

  While Dame Hawisia muttered to herself, I remembered what I had been told of the portents at Edmund’s birth, that I was too young to recall for myself. Burning signs in the heavens, like flaming torches, the earth shaking as if to signal some event of vast importance. Had we believed in the potency of these signs in nature with the flocks calling from the fields, the goats running amok? Perhaps his association with Glyn Dwr, who seemed to have been blest with similar signs and wonders, would confirm the glory of his birth. I doubted Dame Hawisia would see in her shew-stone anything as shatteringly dramatic for Harry.

  ‘As long as you do not see my death today, mistress,’ he said. ‘I have far to travel.’

  Harry handed her the warmed stone. Curiously, it had darkened even further in colour so that it almost glowed on the old woman’s palm, emitting a sense of ancient power.

  ‘No, my lord. I have read the stars from the day of your birth. I see an end, but it is not today.’

  He laughed, disbelieving. ‘Then tell me when, and I will make preparation.’

  ‘No, I forbid it,’ I said with a sharpness. ‘I don’t think you should call on powers that we might not trust.’

  The signs at Edmund’s birth had been seen by all, open to interpretation, but this shew-stone had elements of the devil in its softly glowing surface, its dark magic. I knew not what Dame Hawisia would see in it. Nor did I wish to know what patterns she had seen in the stars that foretold the day of Harry’s death. But Harry remained smilingly disinclined to worry, his glance to me mischievous. He had known her all his life and loved her.

  ‘What do you see? Tell me quick, before my wife calls a halt.’

  ‘Do not mock me, my lord. Did I not warn you that you would be taken prisoner at the battle of Otterburn?’

  ‘So you did. And that I would spend many precious hours in boredom locked in a castle. Which was uncannily correct. So tell me what I can expect in the coming campaign. If I am taken prisoner, is it another castle, another month or two of life without action? Will we have to look for another ransom?’

  I could not return the bright glance in my direction. At the last, I did not wish to know…

  ‘No.’ I said again: ‘No. I think you should not, Dame Hawisia…’

  ‘Let her. It will do no harm, and give her much satisfaction.’

  She smiled in triumph, bending to look into the heart of the quartz. Smooth-edged, it glimmered in the soft gloom with what seemed to me a malevolence.

  ‘I see a battle. I see archers and horses. I hear cries of pain and death.’ She tilted the disc.

  ‘Who wins?’

  ‘Too much darkness.’ She looked up, eyes suddenly fierce. ‘But I’ll say this, my lord. I see your ploughshare drawing its last furrow.’

  I sat up, every muscle tense.

  ‘Where is this?’ Harry was asking, as if he had no belief in it, whatever the reply.

  ‘You will perish at Berwick, my lord. I see it here. Your sword will leave your hand for the last time at Berwick.’

  ‘At Berwick? Am I in old age, retired to the fortress at the edge of the March, surrounded by my children’s children?’ His regard was kindly, with more tolerance for the old woman than I could muster.

  Dame Hawisia’s face was stark with deep etched lines, her eyes sunken in her face like the dark pools on the moors to the north, reflecting no light, no indication of what was below the surface. Her tongue licked over her dry lips, and again, as if she sought for words to describe the vision that had opened for her.

  ‘I do not see the time, my lord. Only the place. The spirits are not communicative.’

  ‘Then I must take care not to draw my ploughshare anywhere near Berwick.’ He gave her a coin. ‘My thanks for your concern, Hawisia. Fortunately I’ve just promised to hand Berwick over to the Earl of Douglas.’

  ‘I only say what I see.’

  ‘I know it. And value your care.’ And when she turned to go, the shew-stone once more secreted in its leather wrapping: ‘Take care of my wife while I am gone.’

  The old woman stopped, back stooped, to look from one of us to the other. Then her eyes met mine, as inscrutable as ever, but it was their very lack of expression that caused me to shiver, a goose walking over my grave.

  �
�It is not my lady who will need care,’ she said before shuffling off through the archway towards the buttery.

  For some reason to which I was not made privy, Harry decided to spend the night at Alnwick. One more night, just the two of us in the great chamber, our world enclosed by the curtains of the great bed. We said all that was needed to be said, our love expressed in words and a physical joining worthy of the Stella Commata, that had recently blazed in our night-skies or so Harry said before he fell into sleep. I agreed with him, for the power of the stars was with us.

  Before he slept, Harry traced my brows with the pads of his fingers, taking cognizance of my nose, my cheeks, my chin, my lips.

  ‘What would you do if I died?’ he whispered in the darkness.

  ‘If you died, I would want to die too.’

  ‘So that you could be with me.’

  ‘So that I could be with you.’

  ‘I won’t die, I promise you. I will carry your image into battle. I can think of no better safekeeping for me, to know that you will be waiting when all is done.’

  My senses were raw with emotion as I reciprocated, tracing his beloved features as he had traced mine.

  We rose with the early dawn, Harry eager to be on his way, breaking our fast with our household, our private farewells done, my role merely that of Lady Percy, ministering to all with food and warm words of encouragement. I walked through the great hall, speaking here, exchanging opinion there. It was a moment full of bright hope, until it was time to go and, in the bailey where Harry’s horse awaited him, my heart was wrung with a deep sense of loss that was a physical hurt.

  Then the children were there, attracted by the noise, their apologetic tutor, a man of some learning and much patience, giving up on a lost cause.

  ‘I thought you would not mind, sir. In the circumstances…’

  ‘No.’ Harry clapped the young man on the shoulder. ‘I would have come to them, if they had not come to me.’

  I let them have his undivided attention for those final moments. I had no right to demand all his time, yet it was hard to be unselfish, experiencing a sharp need to snatch at every moment; it was so before every campaign, but this one held such an extreme element of uncertainty as Harry prepared to challenge the King by force of arms.