‘Do you know where they are?’ Bess once asked directly. ‘Whatever Parliament has decreed they are still Edward's sons and should be treated so.’
‘How should I know?’ Thomas retorted and there was the gruff note in his voice that came when he did not like the turn of conversation.
‘Your father is in a high enough place to be aware of everything,’ she said shrewdly.
‘Well, he has told me nothing. Probably Richard has sent them to some safe place where they may do no harm.’
‘I wonder if that is true.’ She gave a little sigh. ‘It seems that it is dangerous to be a figurehead for unscrupulous people.’
‘You are right,’ he agreed. ‘It is best they should be forgotten.’
She supposed he was right, but at least, she thought, the little princes' sisters were not forgotten, for Richard had been to see Elizabeth in sanctuary and come to an arrangement with her whereby her daughters should come to court and enjoy his protection – and would Elizabeth have done that if she feared for their lives? Bess thought scornfully. She talked with Princess Elizabeth who said her mother was well but lonely, living on her small pension in the Abbey. The girl was tall and fair and pretty and Bess found her modest and good. She suggested to Thomas that he might ask permission for her to visit the deposed Queen, but Thomas said such a visit might be misinterpreted, and anyway the old friendship had gone.
A year later Bess attended another funeral. Queen Anne had been failing for some time, dying of a contagious disease such that the doctors forbade the King her chamber, nor could Bess bid her farewell. She followed the coffin, weeping for the friend who had had so little joy of her crown. She wept too for the stern and sorrowing King. Was it, rumour asked, God's punishment that he should lose both wife and son since taking the throne? Glancing at him, Bess saw a haggard face, reddened eyes, and a depth of despair that seemed barely tolerable.
She thought she would have no chance to speak to him, but after one of the Masses offered for the Queen's soul he saw her and paused beside her. ‘God's punishments are hard to bear, are they not, Bess?’
Ready tears sprang to her eyes. ‘My lord – sire – you cannot think He has taken Anne to punish you. And for what?’
He gave a deep sigh, his eyes haunted. ‘Can I not? Wife and son gone in a year and I left with a crown that lies heavily on my head.’ He saw her looking at him, not knowing what to say, and gave her a faint sorrowful smile. ‘Well, I must go on. All I have done has been for England's good. If I deserve God's anger it is because I did not choose my friend wisely. Go back to Ashwellthorpe, Bess. You are fortunate to be free to do so. I would to God I could go back to Middleham – yet without her it would be empty.’
Her tears were flowing freely now. ‘There is never any going back, is there?’
‘None’ he said. ‘And before me, only stern duty.’
She returned to Ashwellthorpe torn with pity for him, saddened by the weight of sorrow, and tried to look to the future. John was still at Oxford but expected home shortly and she was looking forward to seeing him. But it was not John who rode in a few days later but Thomas himself. Tom was with him and ran to her, wanting to tell her of his betrothal but seeing the gravity on Thomas's face, she sent her son to find his brothers, promising to hear all later. Then she walked with Thomas into the hall.
‘I am glad to see you,’ she said. ‘I hope you can stay awhile.’
‘I'm afraid I can hardly stay at all,’ he answered. ‘I am here only to raise what men I can and join the King in Nottingham.’
‘To raise men? Oh –’ she caught her breath. ‘It cannot be –’
‘Aye, what we have expected these many months. Henry Tudor has landed in the west two weeks since and is marching towards the King. He is claiming the crown and swears he will marry the Princess Elizabeth when he has it! And he has his uncle Jasper and Lord Oxford with him as well as half Wales clamouring to fight under his standard. We forget he lived there for so long. He reached Shrewsbury before we even heard of his coming. I must take very man I can, and I've sent a note to Caister telling Paston to bring his men to meet us.’
After the first shock it was only what she, what everyone had expected for so long. Now surely the King and all the forces of England at his disposal would defeat the Tudor once and for all and there would be peace at last. Yet she held Thomas's arm tightly at the thought of what must come first. ‘Has the King a great army?’
‘None yet, but men will be coming in. Lord Stanley and his brother Sir William should be with us, and the Earl of Northumberland if he can bestir himself to rouse the men of the north. My father has already a good following, and I must take as much food as I can and all the arms.’
The rest of the day was spent in the great hall as servants hurried in and out with arrows and bows, hunting spears and harness; old weapons were taken down from the walls where they had hung since Tewkesbury fight and every available horse was assembled, the smith busily beating out new shoes for them. Sir Robert Bellasis rode round the villages summoning any tall and sturdy fellows he could find to the Duke of Norfolk's banner, while Bess with Elysia and her daughters raided the storerooms and baked bread and packed cheese, beef and ale into saddlebags. The three boys hung about their father, Tom begging to go but at not quite twelve being refused.
At midnight, worn out, Bess went up to their chamber, and half an hour later Thomas, having finished his long accounting with their steward, came to join her.
‘You look so weary,’ she said. ‘Do you really mean to ride out at dawn?’
‘I must.’ He began to throw off his clothes. ‘The King needs every man, every commander, as soon as may be.’ He added grimly, ‘I think the Duke of Suffolk does not mean to stir.’
‘How base! His own wife's brother, and his son made heir to the crown when the Prince of Wales died!’
‘He is a poltroon, a coward, and always was. And I don't altogether trust Northumberland, but send us a victory and he will come to heel.’
He climbed into bed and lay on his side looking at his wife. She remembered how once before she had lain with a man the night before a battle and what that outcome had been. She had not thought of it for many years but now she saw Humphrey's body on a litter, the bloodstained cloak covering him. She reached out her arms and drew Thomas to her.
‘Why, wife,’ he said, ‘are you concerned for me?’
‘Oh indeed, how could I not be? We have been so content since we came here. And if you should not come back –’
‘My life, all our lives, are in God's care and if He wills it I shall come back.’
‘I am afraid. Nothing has gone well since Richard was crowned.’
‘We have gained much.’
‘At what cost? I don't know, only that I am afraid.’
‘You are tired,’ he said, ‘and so am I. But I think, my Bess, that at last you love me a little.’
‘More than you know,’ she said wonderingly, ‘and more than I thought.’ She drew his head on to her shoulder, and held him while he slept.
When it was scarcely dawn he rode out, and the last sight he had of her before the trees hid her from his sight, was of her standing with all the children on the steps of the house he had made his home.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The King had moved on to Nottingham and it was there that Thomas caught up with his army. He rode straight to the castle and found his father in conference with Richard. The Earl of Northumberland was at the table with a map spread out before him, also Viscount Lovell and Sir James Tyrell.
Thomas went at once to Richard and knelt, kissing his hand. ‘I've brought a goodly number, sire, and all equipped as you would wish.’
‘Thank you,’ Richard gave him a faint smile. He was pale, great shadows under his eyes, and when Thomas sat down with the rest to consult the map again he fiddled constantly with a ring on his right hand. A distant door banged and he jumped, and Thomas thought he looked as if he had not slept well for many night
s.
Norfolk said to his son, ‘Tudor's army is here at Atherstone, see?’ He jabbed a finger at the map. ‘My lord Stanley and his brother are about ten miles north of us. He has been ordered to join us tomorrow – which he had better do for his son.’
‘Aye,’ Richard said, ‘and he knows if there is treachery from him that young man will die. I tell you this also – whoever wins this battle England will not be the same again. If it is I who am victorious I shall no longer be as lenient with my enemies as I have been in the past. When I think of those I have pardoned, who ill deserved it, I see now that I have been too gentle. It shall be so no more. If I die and Henry Tudor takes my crown – God help our poor country.’
‘But we outnumber them, sire, or so your spies say, and victory will be ours,’ Northumberland said smoothly, adding as if as an afterthought, ‘My men are exhausted by our long march south. If we might bring up the rear it would give them time for extra rest so that they are all the fresher for the fight.’
‘Very well,’ the King agreed, ‘but fail me not. You may retire now, my lords. Tomorrow we will seek to choose our own ground for the battle.’ Slowly he looked from one to the other. ‘If I have enemies,’ he said at last, ‘I have also good friends, I thank you all.’
As they walked towards the Duke of Norfolk's lodging Thomas said, ‘He does not sound as confident as I should wish.’
‘He has not been himself since the Queen died,’ his father answered. Norfolk was over sixty now but as tough and resilient as ever. ‘Once we have this victory, Dick will be himself again. It will not go well with us, however, my son, if we lose.’
‘No indeed; Henry Tudor has no cause to love us. But surely the King's army can deal with these rag-tag Welshmen?’
‘They are not all rag-tag. My lord of Oxford is a seasoned commander and I wish we were sure who else has scurried to join them.’
By now they had reached the small house where they were to sleep, but even as Norfolk put his hand on the latch he saw a piece of parchment nailed there. He pulled it down and took it inside and there by the light of a candle read:
‘Jockey of Norfolk be not so bold,
For Dickon thy master be bought and sold.’
‘By God!’ he said and laughed, striking the parchment with his other band. ‘Some fool has mistaken the matter – and Jockey of Norfolk too.’
Thomas was staring at the paper. ‘Did we go too far, too fast?’
‘Never. We were Edward's men and then Richard's and have had no more than what was due to us. When we take the road towards Market Bosworth tomorrow we will prove this fellow wrong, eh?’ And he threw the offending verse towards the fire. It fell harmlessly on the edge of the hearth and there the goodman of the house found it in the morning.
On Monday, the twenty-second day of August, the King and his commanders gathered on top of a hill under his standard of the White Boar. Facing them they could see the great red dragon banner of Wales and the colourful pennants moving in the gentle breeze. Away to the north, stirring the dust, lay the men of the Stanleys, yet it was clear that they were moving very slowly.
‘God's Cross!’ Thomas exclaimed. ‘What are they about? Why is Lord Stanley not hurrying to join us?’
Viscount Lovell's disgust was patent. ‘He was always two-faced, sly. Do you think he is not sitting there considering his wife is Henry Tudor's mother?’
Thomas glanced at the still small figure a few yards away under the royal banner. ‘If I had my way I would put his son to death now and send Stanley the head on a shield.’
‘The King swore to do it,’ Sir James Tyrell said in a low voice, ‘but he will not until he sees how Lord Stanley acts. He sent a messenger to him to that effect and all the reply he got was that my lord has other sons!’
Thomas's hand curled on his hilt. ‘I would like to slay him myself.’
‘My lords!’ Richard's voice summoned them. ‘My lord of Norfolk, you command the van with Sir Thomas. I think it is time for you to go down, there is some movement among the enemy.’
Norfolk inclined his head. ‘God save your grace and send us a good end today,’ he said and paused while Thomas with rare impulsiveness bent one knee and put the King's hand to his lips.
‘Amen,’ Richard said. He paused, looking down at Thomas, and then with a quick pressure on his shoulder turned away to take his helm from his squire. He set it on his head with a proud gesture that all might see, yet his hand shook. His eyes went slowly from one to the other of his commanders, his close friends, and he seemed to Thomas to have the look of a man who did not expect to see the darkness fall.
Hours later Thomas came back to consciousness aware of the uneven jerking of wheels over a rough road, of pain, of the smell of blood and a throbbing head. After a hazy moment of wondering what he was doing lying in this dirty cart, memories of the battle came flooding back. He saw his father fall once more, the Norfolk banner trampled into the ground beside his hacked corpse; he remembered the agony of the sword thrust into his own thigh, another blow smashing him against his helm, a slash across one arm. And fallen to his knees, yielding his sword to Sir Gilbert Talbot, he heard, once again the cry. ‘The King is dead! King Richard is dead!’ mingled with yells of triumph from the Tudor men.
With his head still swimming he tried to raise himself. All about him troops were marching wearily across a bridge, prisoners in ranks, and ahead a single horse. Across it lay a naked body, bloodstained from a dozen savage gashes, a halter about the neck, and so careless was the man leading the animal that once or twice the head was banged against the stone balustrade. It was only then that Thomas saw who it was.
‘For Christ's sake,’ he called out, ‘have pity! He did not deserve to be treated thus,’ and groaning fell back in the cart. Someone had clumsily tied a rag about his thigh, but there had been no such mercy for Richard Plantagenet even in death.
They took him to a cell in Leicester Castle with other captives and from them he learned that Viscount Lovell and Sir Richard Ratcliffe had escaped, also Sir James Tyrell, and that many of his own men, seeing his father dead and himself so grievously wounded, had turned and left the field. After Stanley's treachery there had been no hope of victory. Thomas lay on some dirty straw and stared up at the vaulted roof, too deep in grief to care for the pain of his own wounds.
In the morning he was taken before Henry Tudor. He saw a slight young man with fair hair thinning over a narrow forehead and cold grey eyes. He wore the gold coronet that had fallen from the dead King's helm, that Sir William Stanley had found and set upon his head. ‘My lord of Surrey,’ he said in a voice devoid of expression, ‘we are considering what to do with you. I am a true descendant of John of Lancaster and thus of King Edward the Third and so I proclaimed myself on Sunday. Why then yesterday did you follow the usurper, the traitor, the murderer that was Richard Plantagenet? You deserve only the axe.’
‘Sire.’ Somehow Thomas stood on his feet, his wounded thigh scarcely able to support him. ‘Sir, all my life I have been a servant of the crown. If it were set upon a wooden stake I would serve that stake. Until yesterday Richard was my crowned King and I could do no other than I have done. My father lies dead for the same cause.’
‘And well for him that he does for I would not, could not, have spared him.’
Proudly Thomas said, ‘He would not have expected it. As for myself, I am in your hands.’ He refused to add a plea for mercy and waited.
Henry's face betrayed nothing and it was Lord Oxford who said, ‘Your grace, my lord of Surrey speaks the truth. And when I was in exile his father gave help to my lady when she sorely needed a friend. I owed the late Duke much for that and I ask for Sir Thomas's life.’
‘And I,’ Sir Gilbert Talbot added, ‘I had the chance to slay him, but I would not end the life of a valiant man who may yet serve you well.’
Henry stared coldly at the prisoner. ‘You seem to have friends, sir. You may live – for the moment. You shall be taken to the Tower whi
le I decide upon your fate.’
Thomas bowed. ‘I thank your grace.’ But the words sounded hollow. There was nothing about Henry Tudor to like, no smile, no Plantagenet charm, no sudden magnanimity such as Edward or Richard had so often shown, drawing men to them. There was only a cold shrewd mind assessing a victory that had taken from Thomas all he cared for, and as he was led away he saw only a dark future, his own part in it uncertain, his very survival in the hands of this stranger, known to so few, who would shortly be crowned in Westminster Abbey.
Henry Tudor kept Thomas in the Tower for three and a half years. Dreary years for Bess, and on a cold day in the February of 1489 she was once again going through the contents of her store cupboard. It was a task that was becoming more and more depressing.
‘Five score of candles, one barrel of herrings, one of salt beef. Well, I suppose the beef will last until Lent, but we must get more fish. Ride to the coast, Master Will, and see what you can purchase. Take Fitchett with you, he can always drive a hard bargain.’
She began to look at the preserves, the supplies of almonds and raisins, honey and dried apricots. All were at a low ebb, but it had been a hard and weary struggle to make ends meet. There was constant anxiety over money and only the knowledge that Thomas was safe, his wounds healed, kept her courage up. He would come home eventually, she was sure of it, and in the meantime order must be maintained against that day. She could only thank God she was always busy, a dozen tasks helping her to pass the days.
John had played no part in the fighting and therefore had incurred no displeasure from the new King. He had taken his young wife and the widowed Duchess of Norfolk to live in London where he was often at court. He sent his mother what he could, for the Howards had been stripped of everything except Bess's possessions and even those had been threatened in the debacle following Bosworth field. Lord Oxford, surprisingly, came to her rescue as he had to Thomas's. She had been able to stay at Ashwellthorpe and she was thankful for the sake of her senile father and the children. John also sent her news from the court, recounting the magnificence of Henry Tudor's wedding to the Princess Elizabeth. So, John wrote, York and Lancaster were at last united and it would be the end of conflict. Bess had sighed when she read those words. It was a Tudor world now, no longer the Plantagenet rule England had known for so long, and she did not like it. But it had to be accepted and when John sent a message to say that King Henry would permit young Tom to be page to the new Queen she had agreed to let him go. One could not live in the past. All that was left now was a longing for Thomas, not with the kind of longing she had known in her girlhood days, but for his solid reliable presence, the comfort they had finally found together. Despite her busy days there was a deep well of loneliness in her and it was with slow steps that she left the storeroom and went into the hall.
The Sun in Splendour (The Plantagenets Book 6) Page 23
