Queen of the North

by Anne O'Brien

  Think Elizabeth…

  So I thought, striving to grasp the truth out of the morass of maternal emotions. Yes, he had sent Hal into perpetual banishment, but if my son had remained in England, what would have been his future in the debacle of our defeat? Would I have wanted him to join the Mortimer boys under restraint? Lancaster would never have allowed him freedom, if Northumberland had made no gesture of Percy repentance. Waterton was sent to take him into custody once; it could happen again. Is that what I would have wished for him?

  The Earl should have told me of his intent. He was my son.

  Better the Percy heir with some element of freedom in Scotland than rubbing shoulders with the Mortimer heirs, locked in Pevensey!

  And now, thrown into the mess of doubt and debate was this terrible accusation about Worcester’s fatal role in the bloodbath that was the Battle of Shrewsbury. His refusal to accept terms. Any terms.

  I could not believe it.

  I must believe it.

  Thomas might be partial in his loyalties but he would not lie to me.

  So I laid all out before me on the glittering expanse of the Thames, as if I had cast a handful of petals to lie there. How hard it was to see and accept the world as Thomas de Camoys saw it. I had agreed with the raising of arms against Lancaster. I had wished Harry well. I had negotiated with Glyn Dwr and Edmund. I remembered the sense of completion when the agreement had been made to take up the Mortimer cause. I had sent Harry off to Shrewsbury with my blessing.

  Now I felt like shouting my grief. Instead I closed my eyes, covering my mouth with my fingers. Until a noise, a disturbance in the air, attracted me as a magpie landed to my right, to strut along the stone coping, head tilted, eye bright as if it surveyed me. The sheen of its feathers in the sun was iridescent, yet it was a sign of ill omen. Magpies were malign birds, that demanded the onlooker ward off the evil eye. Instead I clapped my hands to send it into a swooping flight, to land again at a little distance. Omens and portents; were we not surrounded by them?

  Who was to blame for Harry’s death and the fall from grace of the Percy magnates? Was it indeed a supernatural power? How many of them spoke to us. The prophecy that Hotspur would die at Berwick. The fell shadowing of the moon. Was his death indeed some God-sent hand of destruction? If we believed the omens, then we had been forewarned but Harry had given it no credence. I doubted it would have kept him from a battle he wished to fight. He knew of Berwick’s terrible power and the lost sword. Still he gave the order to advance against Lancaster.

  The magpie continued to search and hop. Did we look at every omen, every flight of magpie or crow? Did omens dictate our future, or only reflect what man might do in his foolishness or his extremity to destroy his own life?

  When I raised my hand, the bird opened its wings and took flight, leaving me empty and cold, shriven by my own condemnation, like the lance of a sharp knife against a boil, but it gave me no relief from pain.

  ‘You are quite capable of working it out for yourself, if you will allow yourself to see the truth beneath all the dross. If you are willing to weigh and judge your own actions.’

  Blessed Virgin forgive me.

  Hands clasped on the coping stones, I lowered my forehead to rest there, imagining the demands in the Percy reply that had proved impossible for Lancaster to accept. That he had been false and perjured in his swearing on the Gospels, that he had allowed Richard to die when in his keeping, that he had refused to ransom Edmund from his imprisonment, and all the issues of money owing. A catalogue of Percy defiance. No, there would have been no room for manoeuvre there.

  It had been a difficult hour. And because it was the obvious plea for me to make, I lifted my rosary in petition to the Blessed Virgin, letting the age-old comforting words of beseeching compassion in the Salve Regina touch my lips. My voice sounded strange in the open air against the bird songs and squawks, but I spoke them firmly, repentantly.

  O Clement One, full of mercifulness

  O Pious One, so full of rich compassion

  O Sweet One, full of help in each distress

  O Virgin, fairest way to our salvation

  Mary the flower of sweetest meditation,

  Hail…

  The petition trailed into silence.

  ‘Have mercy, Blessed Virgin.’ I spoke again aloud.

  Then I raised my head, opened my eyes, hearing Thomas in his wisdom.

  ‘You must accept your part in it too, or the future will hold nothing for you but dissatisfaction and bitterness that will grind you down. You will be angry and frustrated, gnawed at by ghosts from the past, until the day of your death. Is that what you want?’

  For here was my own culpability. How long could I blind myself to it? I had cast it off for so long, apportioning blame anywhere but on my own shoulders, barricading my mind from the hard words of blame. Mine was the Mortimer blood, mine the dreams, mine the blighted hopes for a Mortimer King. I too was accountable for sending Harry to his death and my son into exile. I had always known it, but had refused to accept that I too had helped direct that final fatal blow that had stolen Harry’s life. Thomas’s words had wounded me to my heart because he had seen what I had shunned, but I could reject it no longer. This guilt that ate at me was my punishment. My purgatory. My living hell. To step beyond it I must make recompense.

  My way forward was clear but it would be neither easy nor painless for me. Garbing myself in all the dignity I could summon, I turned my back on the sunlit water and the magpie and set out to accomplish it.

  Because I would need his aid, I sought out Thomas, reluctantly, cautiously, for my mind could withstand no more belabouring, even if he had my best interest at heart. Moreover, he deserved an apology. With his habitual calm he showed no surprise, crushed into a corner of the small chamber, merely pushing back in his chair, abandoning the pen he had been applying to lists of figures on the lid of the coffer before him, much as a clerk might do. Behind him hung a tapestry, badly stitched by some long-dead Plantagenet lady, a lurid hunting scene complete with eviscerated stags. It seemed most apposite; I too had been hollowed out.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked the man who demanded some response from me. Confession was so difficult. I stood at his side. He looked up at me.

  ‘Overlooking a muster of soldiers and sailors in the King’s name.’

  ‘It sounds dull.’

  ‘It is dull. But necessary if we face a French invasion along the south coast.’ He poked at another roll, with a grimace. ‘And then there is the perennial matter of raising local taxes.’

  ‘Money is always necessary.’

  An image of Harry, railing against Lancaster for lack of funds, sprang fully formed into my mind. Money had always been an issue between them. But perhaps not the greatest. Not in the end. In the end it had been more personal, a betrayal of trust, a destruction of that once-bright friendship, forged on the tournament fields when they had exchanged blows and discussed their merits over a pot of ale afterwards. But they had been unable to mend that friendship when ownership of the crown had come between them. Yes, I had had my own role in that.

  I could not afford to be distracted by painful memories. When I stood in silence, Thomas had picked up the pen again and begun to write, allowing me all the time I needed. I had never known a man of such acceptance.

  Still I hesitated. Then: ‘Thomas…’

  He put down the pen once more, folding his hands one on the other before him. It had been a hard task that he had given me and I would not find the words easy as I slid the beads of my rosary at my girdle through my fingers, a gesture which he noted with a faint smile.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me what is between you and the Blessed Virgin, Elizabeth. I will never trample on your privacy. You may tell me if you wish, or not, as you see fit.’

  His understanding drenched me with emotions I did not wish to have.

  ‘I have accepted much of what you said,’ I said rapidly, before I could lose my determinat
ion to bare my breast.

  ‘I suspect that I was a hard taskmaster,’ he replied.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought it needed saying.’

  ‘And I resented it.’ Still I had a tendency to bristle, hackles rising like a cornered cat. ‘How would you know the truth, when you were not involved?’

  Thomas remained unmoved. ‘No, I was not involved. But you were, and are now chained to the past, blind to all but Hotspur’s glamour. It’s what love does to you.’

  ‘What do you know about love?’

  It was a cruel question, and one I had no right to ask.

  ‘I know its power. I know its pain when not reciprocated. You were fortunate indeed.’ He shook his head, as if regretting such translucence. ‘But that is not why we are here. Guilt is a heavy burden, but better to admit it and share the weight with another who will help you bear it. I will help you if I can.’ He stood and took my hands. ‘What do you wish to do? I can see a struggle of decision-making in your eyes.’

  Suddenly it seemed easier, since he would not condemn me again.

  ‘I have a task. A duty to fulfil. I would wish you to come with me.’

  ‘Then I will.’ He leaned and kissed my cheek, with such gentleness it made my heart shiver. There had been so little gentleness within me of late. ‘What is it?’

  ‘First I need to see Lancaster.’

  There was a glimmer of a smile. ‘Do you wish me to come with you?’

  ‘No. I have to do this alone.’

  ‘Then I will escort you to his door.’

  ‘In case my courage fails me?’

  ‘It will not. I have every confidence in your courage,’ he advised as we walked the corridors, my hand drawn through his arm, for fortunately Lancaster was in residence at Westminster, ‘although not always in your choice of words. Will you take my advice?’

  I sighed a little. ‘I suppose that I must.’

  ‘Try to find it in your soul to acknowledge Henry as King.’

  ‘You do not know what you ask of me.’

  ‘I do. As I know your ability to accept the inevitable. And one more thing for you to consider.’

  I waited when he hesitated, braced against another stripping of my honour.

  ‘The King is unwell. Gravely unwell. He’ll make nothing of it, but allow him some compassion.’

  He kissed my fingers and left me alone at the door to the royal apartments, allowing me the privilege of opening the door of my own volition.

  But before he left:

  ‘Thomas?’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Do you despise me for my past sins?’

  ‘No, I do not. I have enough faults of my own.’

  ‘I know of none.’

  ‘Then I will not burden you with them.’ He was a little brusque, but managed a smile. ‘Now go in and make your peace.’

  Encouraged, at last I opened the door into the royal apartment with a sense of rightness warm about my heart.

  I was directed by a servant into Lancaster’s private chamber where he was seated, occupied with pen and rolls, much as Thomas had been before I interrupted him. He rose, his expression bleak and strained but not overly antagonistic.

  ‘Elizabeth.’

  How weary he was, how bowed his shoulders. Weight had leached from his face since I had last seen him, as had the vibrancy of his hair. Almost I felt compassion. ‘I have not come to argue with you.’

  ‘Which is a relief.’ He was curt. ‘We will sit.’ He sank into the chair he had risen from, inviting me to take the one opposite, the busy table between us. ‘Well, cousin?’

  ‘I would ask one question.’

  ‘I will do my best to answer it.’

  How to ask it? But I must know.

  ‘At Shrewsbury. I accused you of wanting Hotspur’s death.’ My mouth was dry. ‘Did you offer terms to the Earl of Worcester?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did he refuse them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why? Did you make them terms which were impossible to accept? I accused you of malice, but now I must ask you again. I think you were not honest with me, and so I thought the worst of you.’

  ‘Not for the first time.’

  I gave a brief nod in acknowledgement. And then, as if he were drained of all energy, the words were wrung from him.

  ‘The challenge to my power was so widespread, so unequivocal, that it made mediation impossible. Yet still I would have offered a pardon. I did offer it, but it was Percy intent on proving my guilt through victory in the battlefield.’ Leaning forward, forearms braced on the document-strewn surface, he studied the rolls, but his mind was not on their content. ‘Why did Worcester turn his back on me? I don’t know, but there was no meeting of minds on that day. I did not want to fight. I had too much respect for Hotspur, as friend and adversary, to see him dead on the field. I hoped to win his friendship and cooperation again, to settle all the enmities without waging war against my subjects. No King would willingly do that. Although many would think it ill-judged of me, I offered conciliation, yet Worcester would have none of it. He had served me all his life, and Richard before me, yet on that day there was no reasoning with him.’

  ‘And what he told Harry Percy, we have no true notion,’ I dropped into the little silence.

  ‘No. Whatever it was, it did nothing to stop the Percy retainers launching an attack. We must presume it was not conciliatory.’ He drew in a breath, looking up at me beneath his brows. ‘I did not weep over Hotspur’s body on the battlefield, but neither did I seek his death. I did all in my power, other than withdrawing from the battlefield, to stop it. But retreat was not a choice for me and my hold on this kingdom. My dealings with his body, which you consider reprehensible, were those demanded to make an example of any traitor. I would do the same again tomorrow. But I had no enjoyment in it. Believe it as you will, Elizabeth.’

  I bowed my head, in a strange sense of relief to know the truth, even though the deliberate cruelty, the wish to humiliate and degrade, still wounded me.

  ‘Whatever you believe or do not believe, Hotspur fought with great courage. He could not be faulted in that.’

  Except in the execution of it. I now knew the truth.

  ‘Thank you.’ I looked up. ‘I have a request, my lord.’

  His smile was spare. ‘You always have requests. Can I guess?’

  ‘You might. I have a need to make recompense. And to so many people. I would bury the Earl of Northumberland beside his son, as is fitting.’

  ‘As a site for pilgrimage for those who would still unseat me? To worship at the remains of a rebel? We have had this conversation before.’

  The driving will and harsh denunciation had returned.

  ‘No. It will be unmarked. As is his son’s.’

  Leaning forward again, he thought, his elbows crushing the rolls, his fingers steepled. How spare and thin his hands had become, almost as if wielding a sword would not be an easy task.

  ‘Then I will allow it. But not yet. This kingdom needs to see the penalty for waging war against its King. The remnants of the Earl will remain on display until I am satisfied that the lesson is learned. Then I will send the Earl’s body to you.’

  ‘My thanks,’ taking heed that he still called him the Earl. How could Henry Percy not be Earl of Northumberland?

  I stood, remembering Thomas’s advice. Here was Henry of Lancaster, prepared to be generous in his victory. The Mortimer cause was dead. I knew it in my bones.

  I made a deep curtsey.

  ‘Thank you, my lord King.’

  It was not so difficult after all.

  As I turned away, I asked the question I had once asked before: ‘Will you allow my son to return from Scotland?’

  ‘No. Not yet. Perhaps one day. Perhaps my own son will have a strong enough hold to welcome back those who might once have undermined Lancaster’s power. I cannot. But one day it might happen.’

  There were limits to his generosity. But
a little seed of comfort had been planted in my heart.

  ‘And you should know,’ he added as I opened the door, ‘I will wage war against your brother Mortimer and Glyn Dwr until the final breath in my body. You should warn them. There will be no mercy.’

  I curtsied again. ‘Yes, my lord King. I will warn them.’

  It was four months before a letter arrived at Trotton, the sun lighting the royal seals and the tabard of the royal herald into a glory of red and gold and blue.

  It is done. I will leave the final arrangements for Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, in your hands, knowing that I can rely on your discretion.

  It had taken four months before the King’s political heart was satisfied, but at last it was done. I could make my way to York and lay more than the Earl of Northumberland’s body to rest.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  York Minster: 2 July 1408

  The voices of the monks rose and fell in the familiar responses, laying patterns on the still air, in the great church. It was Matins. How cold it was against my skin. Cold as forgiveness. Cold as a future without love, without compassion. But I had stepped beyond that. There was forgiveness and compassion after all, and there was an affection.

  I stood once more in the chapel in the depths of the Minster church in the city of York. I would have come alone, and yet I thought that Thomas’s unobtrusive presence but undoubted authority had smoothed my path.

  Discretion, the King had demanded. Yes, I had been discreet. A simple coffin, a lack of retainers and mourners, an absence of heraldic achievements. Another unmarked grave. I had concurred with the King’s demands and now I could end the whole tragic episode. The Earl had loved his son, whatever the rift between them at the end. I could acknowledge that love, and I must forgive him. They would lie together for eternity, unknown, unseen, unmarked, so that none would desecrate them further.

  The coffin was lowered into the vault with prayers from the same cleric who had laid Harry to rest. I watched as the stone was restored and made the sign of the cross on my breast.

  All was finished. What now?