John, who was ordinarily a man little given to squandering time, now found himself wandering aimlessly about Westminster. He did not want to go home. He thought his Isabella to be a perfect wife in all the ways that mattered, but it did not occur to him to burden her with his discontent, or worse, to alarm her with his forebodings. There were some troubles, he felt, that a man must shoulder alone.
Still less did he want to go to the Herber. The last one he wanted to see at that moment was his brother. Either one of them, he amended. His brother the Earl or his brother the Archbishop. He did not want to think what they might do now, the brother who’d been stripped of the chancellorship and the brother who’d been denied his dreams of glory. Dreams fed him with a silver spoon by His Most Cunning Grace, the Christian King of France. John cursed under his breath, long and hard. It didn’t help.
He found himself before the royal gate that led from the inner bailey into the precincts of the abbey, passed on through. Courtesy compelled him to pause to exchange stilted greetings with Anthony Woodville, and the encounter only soured his spirits all the more. But as he neared the Lady Chapel he saw George Norwich, the Lord Abbot, and with him, the one person he suddenly knew he’d been hoping to find, the only one who could understand how he felt. He paused, waited for Richard to come toward him.
They didn’t talk at first; too many others were within earshot. Entering the King’s private entrance into the abbey, they paused at the font of holy water and then crossed the south transept, exiting out the east door of the cloisters. To their right lay the carrels, the small alcoves where the monks studied and copied psalms, Gospels, and an occasional manuscript. They began to walk down the east walkway, instead, toward the Chapter House. It was only then that Richard turned to John.
“What happened, Johnny? Was it bad?”
“Yes,” John said bluntly. “Very bad.” He gave Richard a curious look. “Your brother George was there to hear for himself. You could have been there too, Dickon. Why weren’t you?”
“I didn’t want to be,” Richard said simply, and after a moment, John nodded.
“None could blame you for that.” He grimaced, did not even realize he did so. “It could have been worse than it was, though. Your lady mother happened to make a most fortuitous entrance! If she hadn’t…” He saw it then, saw the truth. He stared at Richard and then began to laugh.
“I should have guessed at once! That was inspiration, Dickon, in truth it was!”
Richard looked pleased, both with the praise and with himself. “No,” he said. “That was desperation!”
They stood for several moments looking out into the flowering inner garth.
“It was all I could think to do, Johnny. I can’t say my mother was much pleased to be awakened at midnight, but once she did cease yelling at me, she agreed a visit to Westminster was long overdue!” Richard smiled, but sobered almost immediately. “It was all too easy to learn when my cousin was expected at Westminster this morning. All the court did know,” he said and sighed.
They’d almost reached the Chapter House and both stopped, avoiding it by common accord, for the abbey Chapter House was where the Commons sat when in session and neither the boy nor the man felt in the mood to deal with politicians.
Turning, they began to retrace their path.
“How old are you, Dickon…fourteen?”
“Fifteen in October.” Richard hesitated and then blurted out, “Fourteen is such a wretched age to be, Johnny!”
The outburst was so unlike him that John had to smile.
“As I recall, I didn’t think much of being fourteen either. You have to endure all those endless lectures from your elders, needed or not!”
He saw Richard grin, and added lightly, “No, fourteen isn’t much fun, is it? If you’re not having your ears bent with unwanted advice, you’re getting your backside warmed with a birch switch! Or fretting because you’ve suddenly discovered the fairer sex and don’t know quite what to do about it!”
Richard was still grinning but now he was slightly flushed, as well, and John smiled at him.
“But take heart, Dickon. The first will pass. And the other…well, you’ll find out soon enough, I daresay,” he said, with such obvious affection in his voice that Richard was warmed by it, was moved to confide,
“Jesú, I do hope so!”
He’d meant to sound wry, sounded wistful instead. He flushed much more noticeably now and then laughed at himself. John laughed, too. The days were long gone, he knew, when Dickon could come to Warwick. Nor did he think the boy was likely to approach Ned. In carnal matters, Ned was too knowing. The mere fact that Ned had no inhibitions to speak of would, in itself, be inhibiting to a youngster, John suspected.
He looked at Richard, and suddenly a dark thought crossed his mind, at the very instant that a billowing cloud blotted out the sun. When his own son reached Dickon’s age, would there be anyone for him to turn to for advice or reassurance? He stared up at the cloud hovering above their heads, felt a queer superstitious pang, and resolutely shook it off. As if making idle conversation, he observed, “I was nigh on sixteen when I lay with a girl for my first time. In a stable loft, of all places! It took me two days to get all the straw from my hair!”
Richard was looking extremely interested; now said, with what he hoped was tact, “Almost sixteen? Wasn’t that…well, late, Johnny?”
“It’s not a question of being late or early, Dickon…just of being ready! When you are, you’ll be the first to know! Of course, the right opportunity must present itself, or all the readiness in the world doesn’t help!”
Richard digested this in thoughtful silence, then said, “Ned was thirteen…. He did tell me once.”
“I don’t doubt it,” John said dryly, and then turned toward the boy. “You know, Dickon,” he said, suddenly so serious that he surprised himself as much as Richard, “you’d do best not to measure yourself by Ned’s standards. Ned is a law unto himself, in more ways than one! You needn’t look so troubled. I’m not saying Ned’s standards are at fault, merely that they’re his. And anytime you try to walk around in someone else’s boots, you’re apt to find them a poor fit.”
Richard was frowning. “Do I do that?”
“Sometimes. I think Edmund did, too, and it would have been better for him if he hadn’t.”
Richard was not comfortable speaking of his dead brother; he tried not to think of those winter months of 1461 at all. Nor did he like what John had just said about Edward, even though he knew it was well meant.
By now, they’d traversed the entire length of the north walkway, past the industrious monks who didn’t deign even to glance up at their approach.
“I still do think fourteen is a rotten age,” Richard said, and John gave him a thoughtful, probing look, suddenly seeing what the boy had been referring to all along.
Richard was standing in the sun; it set fire to the jeweled Yorkist collar of roses and suns he wore about his shoulders, gilded the shining dagger he had at his hip, his cousin’s gift. John’s eyes flickered between them, the Yorkist collar and the dagger, before saying, “Because you feel helpless, caught between loyalties?”
Richard nodded, and John reached out, let his hand rest on Richard’s shoulder.
“I regret to tell you, lad, that age hasn’t a damned thing to do with how you feel right now. You see, Dickon, I’m thirty-six and it still hurts, hurts more than I care to admit.”
10
Olney
August 1469
There were times that summer when Richard felt as if the world had gone mad. How else explain the predicament in which he and Ned found themselves, trapped in a sleepy Buckinghamshire village by an enemy army? An army led not by Lancastrians but by their cousin Warwick and their brother George.
The street before him was quiet, the air heavy with August heat, the sun hot on his face. He was deeply tanned after two months in the saddle. Being the dark one in a fair family had its advantages, after all. Ed
ward had suffered far more from the same sun, had spent several uncomfortable days with peeling nose and skin too sensitive to shave.
Queer, he thought, how normal it all did look. As if nothing had changed. As if the inconceivable hadn’t happened. But was it truly inconceivable? Or was it just that he’d refused to face it until now?
Ironically enough, the campaign had begun for him in a flurry of excitement. Two northern rebellions had broken out that spring. John Neville had undertaken to crush the one led by the rebel calling himself Robin of Holderness. He’d dispatched the insurgents with his usual efficiency; in Richard’s opinion, Johnny was by far the best soldier in the Neville family.
Marguerite d’Anjou had been suspected, of course, of instigating the revolt, but the rebellion was soon revealed to have been fomented on behalf of the Lancastrian Henry Percy, still confined to the Tower, the man whose title John now held. There was much sentiment in Yorkshire for restoring the earldom of Northumberland to the Percy family. Not surprisingly, Richard thought, Johnny took a rather dim view of this advocacy. He’d defeated the rebels at the very gates of York and beheaded Robin of Holderness in the marketplace of the city.
The second insurgency was spearheaded by another Robin, this one styling himself as Robin of Redesdale. Richard had wondered on that, until Edward had explained that ambitious malcontents thought it advantageous to stir up memories of the most renowned of all political rebels, Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest.
Edward had scoffed at such political propaganda, but decided to deal with Robin of Redesdale himself. Much to Richard’s delight, he’d been able to convince Edward that he was, at sixteen, old enough for his first military campaign. With Elizabeth Woodville’s father, Earl Rivers, and her brothers Anthony and John Woodville, they’d departed London in early June, riding north to the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, recruiting men to the Yorkist standard along the way.
It had been an enjoyable journey for Richard, even surrounded as he was by Woodvilles. This was his first full taste of the adult responsibilities he was so eager to assume, and he’d taken pride and pleasure in calling men to arms under his own banner of the Whyte Boar. Edward had been in no hurry; they’d moved from Walsingham up into Lincolnshire, pausing for some days at Richard’s birthplace, Fotheringhay Castle, and then on to Newark.
It was at Newark that they learned the truth, a truth that exploded with the force of gunpowder in the sheltered center of Richard’s world. Robin of Redesdale had been unmasked as one Sir John Conyers, a cousin by marriage of the Earl of Warwick. And what had seemed to be a minor border rebellion was, in fact, a major military threat; Conyers had massed an army more than three times what Edward commanded.
Edward had at once retreated into the stone-walled security of Nottingham Castle, urgently summoning aid from Lords Herbert and Stafford. He had, at the same time, dispatched a personal letter to his cousin and another to his brother, requesting that they meet with him to discuss their grievances. He soon had his answer, though not in the manner expected. Word reached Nottingham that Warwick and George had slipped across the Channel to Calais. There on July 11, George Neville, Archbishop of York, had wed George to Isabel Neville in open defiance of Edward’s wishes.
Edward had been furious by the marriage, Richard disconcerted. How must it appear to his cousin Anne, that George would dare Ned’s wrath for Bella when he would not do the same for her? Richard found the thought of hurting Anne intolerable. Almost as intolerable as the thought of betraying his brother. For he had no illusions now; a betrayal it would be. He was forced to face at last what he’d been trying for five years to deny, that he was confronted with irreconcilable loyalties. Either he stood with Ned or he stood with Warwick. One or the other.
Richard yearned for the chance to try to explain to Anne, to assure her that his loyalty to Ned did not lessen his affection for her. Anne was part of his life; nothing could change that. Had Edward not forbidden a betrothal, he’d have been quite willing to plight troth with Anne, as Warwick wanted. But he couldn’t bring himself to pay Warwick’s price.
He consoled himself as best he could with the thought that Anne was very young yet; by the time she was of marriageable age, perhaps circumstances would be different. He’d made a halting attempt to talk to Edward about it, sought some sort of assurance from his brother that he might reconsider the match at a later date. Edward had been irked, but Richard had persevered and finally won from Edward a grudging concession, an adamant “No” softened into a “We’ll see.” With that, Richard had been content…until he learned of George’s marriage and recognized the effect it would have upon Anne.
Not that he had much time to dwell upon the unhappiness of his young cousin. Things had gone from bad to worse for them that July. Warwick and George had not lingered in Calais. Once back in England, they rapidly mustered a large force, ostensibly in the King’s name. But they also issued a proclamation that Richard thought to be tantamount to a declaration of war.
The Woodvilles were savagely assailed for their evil influence upon the King. A number of Warwick’s personal enemies, among them Lords Herbert and Stafford, were also denounced. But most ominously of all, the proclamation likened Edward to three monarchs notorious for inept rule, the three English Kings who’d been deposed and dethroned: Edward II, Richard II, and the hapless Harry of Lancaster.
Will Hastings had been quick to answer Edward’s summons, wasted no time in joining them at Nottingham Castle. The Woodvilles had been just as quick to depart, Anthony Woodville to his estates in Norfolk, Earl Rivers and his son John toward Wales. Richard would have liked to know whether Edward sent them from Nottingham for their own safety, as the true targets of Warwick’s proclamation, or whether they’d fled of their own choosing. He did not ask Edward, though; the only way he’d been able to accept Edward’s Queen was to refrain from ever discussing the Woodvilles with his brother.
After three anxious weeks of waiting in Nottingham, Edward decided to start south, expecting to join forces with the approaching armies of Lords Herbert and Stafford. They had reached the little village of Olney this morning, had paused for food and drink while Edward sent out scouts to make sure the road ahead was clear. They soon brought back disquieting reports of a large force coming up slowly from the southwest, and Edward elected to remain in Olney until these first sketchy reports could be confirmed.
He was upstairs now with Will Hastings in the inn he’d chosen as his headquarters, having his first meal in some eight hours. Richard was too tense to eat, even though he’d had nothing but manchet bread and ale in a hastily bolted dawn breakfast. He was standing, instead, in the street before the inn, wondering how the scene could be so ordinary, as if it were a day like all others. He turned to go back into the inn, and then the shouting began.
A rider was coming down the street, whipping his mount with a frenzy that earned him Richard’s instinctive disapproval. He stopped to watch. This was not one of their scouts, but he knew at once that something was wrong, very wrong.
The horseman was heading for the inn, directed by the shouts of several villagers. He was close enough now for Richard to recognize the badge he wore upon his breast, the cognizance of Lord Herbert. Richard’s heart suddenly speeded up; so did his pulse, his breathing. As the rider tumbled from the saddle, Richard darted forward, caught the lathered animal by the reins.
“You come from Lord Herbert? What news have you?”
The courier was not much older than Richard himself. He didn’t recognize Richard, but he did recognize the authority in Richard’s voice, answered without hesitation.
“The road south is blocked! A large host, and well armed. I almost blundered into their ranks!” He was panting, leaned for a moment against his equally labored mount.
Richard made himself ask. “Under whose command?”
“The Archbishop of York.”
Richard sucked in his breath. Catching Rob Percy’s eye, he said bitterly, “It seems my cousin has seen fit t
o exchange his cassock for a cuirass.” With an effort, he brought his attention back to Herbert’s man.
“What of my lord Herbert? When does he reach Olney?”
The youth now knew Richard’s identity. He hesitated and then said, “My lord…he will not. He’s dead. Six days ago, Lord Herbert and Lord Stafford met the armies of Robin of Redesdale and the Earl of Warwick. Near Banbury, at a place called Edgecot. Our forces were butchered, my lord. Lord Herbert and his brother were taken prisoner. Warwick, he…he had them beheaded, my lord. For fighting for their lawful King! That was murder, Your Grace. Murder and no other word for it.”
Richard stared at him. He could not believe what he was hearing. He could not be standing here in the summer sunlight, listening to a stranger pronounce what might be a death sentence for him, for Ned, for them all.
He turned, saw Rob Percy was now beside him, regarding him with wide fearful eyes. He saw other faces then, too; the courtyard was suddenly full of soldiers, shocked into silence, looking to him, all of them.
He swallowed, forced the words up from a throat so tight not even saliva could trickle down it.
“You’d best come with me. The King’s Grace will wish to question you.”
With the courier at his heels, he walked toward the entranceway of the inn; people moved aside to let him pass. But once he was inside, he could hold back no longer. He whirled for the stairs, took them three at a time to burst into his brother’s chamber bereft of breath for speech. But one glance at his face was enough to bring Edward to his feet with an oath.
“Ned, you’ve got to get away from here, and fast!” Will Hastings was ashen. “Now, with no delay!”
Richard concurred heartily, but held his tongue, awaiting his brother’s response. Edward had been strangely silent since Richard had first gasped out the news of Edgecot. He’d listened without interruption to the courier’s account of the battle, which had been a fiasco of leadership for Herbert and Stafford.
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