Wars of the Roses 01 - Stormbird

by Conn Iggulden

  Suffolk hesitated and Derry spoke for him.

  ‘It will be a formal exchange of vows, princess. Without a groom, it cannot properly be said to be a marriage, but it will be enough.’

  ‘But I see a ring on Lord Suffolk’s finger!’ Margaret said, shaking her head. ‘How can he stand in a church and make solemn vows when he is already married?’

  ‘Kings make their own law, princess. If Henry wants it so – and if King Charles agrees that it will do – well, it will do.’

  All eyes turned to the French king, who was listening in fascinated confusion.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ Lord René said quietly. ‘We have come so far. This is but a step.’

  The king scratched his nose, thinking.

  ‘I have certain sealed agreements with your King Henry,’ he said. ‘Agreements that become active as soon as Princess Margaret is married. You say you will honour this … betrothal as a true marriage in those terms?’

  ‘I will,’ Suffolk and Derry said almost together.

  The French king shrugged.

  ‘Then I am satisfied.’ He changed to rapid French to speak again to Margaret. ‘The English are gauche and clumsy, my dear, but if their king is ill, it is God’s plan and mere men can only bend. Will you accept these terms? It would honour your father.’

  Margaret curtsied.

  ‘If it is your wish, Your Majesty.’

  Tension seemed to flow out of the small group as she spoke. Lord Suffolk patted her awkwardly on the hand.

  ‘I think, then, that I should take my place at the altar, my dear. I see the bishop is waiting for the groom to come to the altar. He will surely believe I have led a terrible life to look so very old.’

  He smiled down at her and Margaret’s eyes filled with tears at his attempt to be kind. She saw the Englishman wrestle a gold band from his finger and place it carefully into a pocket. She could see a white line where it had been for many years.

  Before he moved to take his place in the pews, she saw Lord York lean in close to Suffolk. Though the thin lord smiled as he spoke, whatever he said made Suffolk grow pale in the gloom.

  Yolande reached up to dab away Margaret’s tears before they could spoil the kohl on her lashes, then replaced the veil almost reverently. Margaret struggled to take a full breath. She was fourteen years old and she told herself firmly that she would not wilt or faint on her wedding day, or whatever it had become. In her silent thoughts, she vowed to have words with her English king when she met him at last. Leaving her alone at their own wedding ought to be worth at least a castle.

  The thought made her chuckle and Yolande looked up in surprise. The rest of the men had dispersed to the pews and the crowd outside was coming in at last, looking nervously at her and whispering questions that could not be answered. At the end of the nave, William de la Pole had walked through the door in the black oak pulpitum that hid the mysteries of the altar and the choir from the congregation. Through that gap, she could see the Englishman’s wide back as he stood and waited for a princess of France. Margaret shook her head in disbelief.

  ‘This is a strange day,’ she muttered to her sister. ‘I find I am nothing more than a bauble, while they play games of power all around.’

  She set her jaw, refusing to look as her father came to her side and took her arm. Yolande and her cousins fell into step behind her and the church filled with music as three harpists began to play. On her father’s arm, Margaret walked slowly down the nave, her head held high. They passed through the pulpitum screen together and the door was closed behind them. When Lord Suffolk looked back, he smiled to see such bravery in a girl so young. Whether by luck or God’s blessing, or perhaps the sheer chicanery of Derry Brewer, Suffolk thought King Henry had found a rare one to be his bride.

  The bells of the Saint-Gatien cathedral rang out over Tours, a joyous sound that rippled on and on in complicated patterns that never repeated for the course of a full peal.

  Derry watched placidly as the French princess came out and was escorted back to her waiting carriage with the bells and roaring crowd echoing all around her. She was smiling and weeping at the same time, which made Derry chuckle. If his own daughter had lived, she would have been about that age. The thought brought a stab of an old pain to his chest.

  The French king and his most powerful lords came out to see the bride leave for Saumur Castle, the monarch already deep in conversation and surrounded by messengers running to and from the army waiting outside the city.

  Derry’s thoughts were interrupted as a hand came down hard on his right shoulder. In the inns of east London, he’d have grabbed it and broken the small finger, but he resisted the impulse with an effort.

  ‘What have you done, in the king’s name, Derry Brewer?’ York hissed at him. ‘Tell me this is not so. Tell me that we haven’t just given up lands won back to good Englishmen by Henry of Monmouth.’

  ‘His son, our king, wanted a truce, Lord York, so yes, that is exactly what we have done,’ Derry replied. He removed the hand on his shoulder, deliberately squeezing the bones together as he did so. York grunted in pain, though he resisted the urge to rub his hand when he had it back.

  ‘This is treason. You will swing for this, along with that fool Suffolk.’

  ‘And the king at our sides, I suppose? Lord York, is it possible you have failed to comprehend the arrangement? Maine and Anjou are the price for twenty years of truce. Will you gainsay your own king in this? It is what he wanted. We who are his humble servants can only give way to the royal will.’

  To his surprise, York stood back and smiled coldly at him.

  ‘I think you will discover that there are consequences to these games, Derry Brewer. Whatever you think you have accomplished, the news is out now. As your secret deals are heard, the country will know only that King Henry has given away territories won by his father – and by English blood, shed on the battlefields. They will say … Oh, I will leave you to work out what they will say. I wish you luck, but I want you to remember that I warned you.’ For a moment, York chuckled and shook his head. ‘Do you think they will go meekly, those Englishmen, just because a fat French lord points them back to Normandy? You have overreached yourself with your cleverness, Brewer. Men will die because of it.’

  ‘Are you selling lavender as well as prophecy? I ask because I would value a sprig of lavender and there are no gypsy women here.’

  He thought York would lose his temper then, but the man merely smiled once more.

  ‘I have sight of you now, Derry Brewer. My men have sight of you. I wish you luck getting back to Calais, but I fear it is not with you today. All your bright magpie chatter will not serve you when we catch you up on the road.’

  ‘What an odd thing to say to me, Lord York! I will see you again in London or Calais, I’m certain. For the moment, though, the French king has invited me to accompany him on a hunt. I like him, Richard. He speaks English ever so well.’

  Derry raised a hand to catch the attention of the French noble party. One of the barons saw and gestured in reply, calling him over. With a last insouciant raise of the eyebrows for York’s benefit, Derry strolled across to them.

  Outside the town, the French army began to pack up its camp, ready to take command of more new land won in a morning than in the ten years before that day. Duke René was beaming as Derry reached the group. More than a dozen of his peers stood close around him, clapping him on the shoulders and calling their loud congratulations. To Derry’s surprise, the Frenchman had tears running down his pale cheeks. He saw Derry’s expression and laughed.

  ‘Oh, you English, you are too cold. Do you not understand I have my family land back today? These are tears of joy, monsieur.’

  ‘Ah, the best kind,’ Derry replied. ‘There was talk of a hunt when His Majesty invited me to accompany him?’

  Duke René’s eyes changed subtly in the light.

  ‘I suspect His Majesty King Charles was amusing himself at your expense, monsieur. There will
be no hunting of boar or wolves, not today. Yet His Majesty will accompany his army as they move north through my land. Who can say what English deer we will find shivering in my family fields and vineyards?’

  ‘I see,’ Derry said, his good humour vanishing. ‘I suspect I will not join you after all, Lord Anjou. If you don’t mind, I will remain here for a time, while I make arrangements to return home.’

  He watched Richard of York striding away to give orders to the thousand men he had brought south. They too would withdraw to Normandy. The duke had no choice at all. For a moment, Derry had a sickening sense that York was not the fool he thought he was. There were many English settlers in Maine and Anjou, that much was true. Surely they would not be foolish enough to resist? The agreements King Henry had signed allowed for the peaceful uprooting of English families in the French provinces. Yet the mood of the nobles all around him was indeed that of a hunt. They showed their teeth and he could sense a febrile excitement in the air that worried him. Derry could taste nervous acid in his throat. If the English in Maine and Anjou refused to go, it could yet mean a war. All the work he had put in, all the months of scheming, would be wasted. The hard-won truce would last no longer than frost in summer.

  8

  For three days, the French army and York’s soldiers shadowed each other, moving north through Anjou. Duke Richard’s men pulled far ahead after that, in part because the French king stopped and held court in every town. The royal party made a grand tour of the Loire valley, making camp whenever King Charles saw something of interest or wished to see a church with the bones of a particular saint. The rivers and vineyards stretching over many miles of land gave him especial pleasure.

  Hundreds of Anjou families were evicted by rough French soldiers running ahead of the main army. In shock and despair, they took to the roads in carts or on foot, a great stream of suddenly beggared subjects that only grew each day. York pulled his men back to the new border of English land in France, picketing them on the outskirts of Normandy as the flood of evacuees kept coming, filling every village and town with their misery and complaints. Some of them called angrily for justice from King Henry for their losses, but most were too stunned and powerless to do more than weep and curse.

  The evictions went on and there were soon tales of rape and murder to add to the chaos and upheaval as the families came in. As the weeks passed, minor lords sent furious letters and messengers demanding that English forces protect their own, but York set them aside unread. Even if the evictions hadn’t been by decree of an English king, he wanted them to come home with their tales of humiliation. It would fan flames in England, making a fire that would surely consume Derry Brewer and Lord Suffolk. He did not know if the unrest would reach as far as the king himself, but they had brought it about between them and they deserved to be shamed and vilified for what they had done.

  Each evening, York went to the church tower of Jublains and looked south over the fields. As the sun set, he could see hundreds of English men, women and children staggering towards the safe border, each with their own story of violence and cruelty. He only wished Derry Brewer or Suffolk, or even King Henry himself, could see what they had brought about.

  He heard footsteps on the stone stairs as he stood there, watching the sun set on the forty-third day after the wedding. York looked round in surprise as he saw his wife ascending.

  ‘What’s this? You should be resting, not climbing cold steps. Where is Percival? I’ll have his ears for it.’

  ‘Peace, Richard,’ Cecily replied, panting slightly. ‘I know my own strength and I sent Percival away to fetch me cold, pressed juice. I just wanted to see the view that keeps you up here each evening.’

  York waved at the open window. In other circumstances, he might have appreciated the dark gold and rose of a French sunset, but as it was, he was oblivious to its beauty.

  Cecily leaned on the wide sill after edging around a great bronze bell.

  ‘Ah, I see,’ she said. ‘Those little people. Are they the English you mentioned?’

  ‘Yes, all coming north into Normandy with their sorrows and petty rages, as if I do not have enough troubles. I don’t come to watch them. I come because I’m expecting to see the French army marching up here before the year is out.’

  ‘Will they stop here?’ Cecily asked, her eyes widening.

  ‘Of course they will stop! Evicting families is more to their taste than English archers. We’ll turn them round and send them south again if they put one foot on English land.’

  His wife relaxed visibly.

  ‘Lord Derby’s wife was saying it’s all an awful mess. Her husband thinks we should tear up whatever agreement has been made and begin again. He says the king must not have been in his right mind …’

  ‘Hush, my dear. Whatever the truth of it, we have no choice but to defend the new border. In a year or two, perhaps I will be given the chance to take it back in battle. We’ve lost Maine and Anjou before, under King John. Who knows what the future will hold?’

  ‘But there is a truce, Richard? Lord Derby says there will be twenty years of peace.’

  ‘Lord Derby has a lot to say to his wife, it seems.’

  The tower was as private a place to be found in France, but even so, York stepped close to his wife, running his hand over the bulge of the child growing within her.

  ‘The mood is ugly among the men, my dear. I have reports of unrest and it has only just begun to spread. I would prefer to know you are safe at home. King Henry has lost the faith of his lords. This will not end well, when enough of them learn it was his hand behind it – and Suffolk’s name on the treaty. I’ll have William de la Pole tried for treason, I swear it. By God, to think I am separated from the throne by the distance of one brother! If my grandfather Edmund had been born before John of Gaunt, I would be wearing the crown that sits so poorly on Henry’s head. I tell you, Cecily, if I were king, I would not give back a single foot of land to the French, not till the last trumpet blast! This is our land and I have to watch as it is given away by fools and schemers. Jesus wept! King Henry is a simpleton. I knew it when he was a boy. He spent too much time with monks and cardinals and not enough wielding a sword like his father. They ruined him, Cecily. They ruined the son of my king with their prayers and poetry.’

  ‘So let them fall, Richard,’ Cecily said, placing a hand against her husband’s chest and feeling the heart beating strongly. ‘Let them reap the whirlwind, while you grow in strength. Who knows, but you may find yourself in reach of the crown in time? If Henry is as weak as you say?’

  Paling, York put a hand tight over his wife’s mouth.

  ‘Not even here, my darling. Not aloud, not even whispered. It does not need to be said, do you understand?’

  Her eyes were bright as he removed his hand. The last rays of the sun were shining into the tower, the entire sky darkening to claret and soft lilac.

  ‘My dear, no matter what happens next year, this summer must come to an end first. While King Henry prays, good rivers and valleys are taken back by those French whores … I’m sorry, Cecily. My anger soars at the thought of it.’

  ‘It is forgotten, but you will not teach our child such terms, I hope.’

  ‘Never. You are as fertile as a vineyard, my fine Neville bride,’ he said, reaching out and touching her belly for good luck. ‘How is the Neville clan?’

  Cecily laughed, a light tinkling sound.

  ‘My nephew Richard is the one doing well, or so I’ve heard. He married the Beauchamp girl, if you remember? Shrewish little thing, but she seems to dote on him. Her brother is Earl Warwick and I’m told he is failing faster than the doctors can bleed him.’

  ‘The one without a son? I know him. I hope your nephew will still come to visit, Cecily. What is he now, eighteen, nineteen? Half my age and almost an earl!’

  ‘Oh, he worships you, you know that. Even if he does inherit the earldom, he’ll still come to you for advice. My father always said Richard was the one with
the wits, out of all the family.’

  ‘I’m sure he meant me,’ her husband said, smiling.

  She tapped him on the forearm.

  ‘He didn’t mean you at all, Richard York. My brother’s son is the one with the wits.’

  The duke looked out of the window. At thirty-four years old, he was strong and healthy, but he felt again the sense of creeping despair at the thought of a French army marching into view in the distance.

  ‘Perhaps you’re right, my dear. This Richard can hardly think his way past tomorrow, at least for the moment.’

  ‘You’ll beat them all, I’m certain. If I know you at all, I know you don’t lose easily – and you don’t give up. It’s a Neville trait as well. Our children will be terrors, I’m quite sure.’

  He placed a cool hand along her jaw, feeling a surge of affection. Outside, the evening had come in shades of purple and grey. He reached out to gather her cloak closer around her.

  ‘I’ll come down with you,’ he said. ‘I don’t want you to fall on those steps.’

  ‘Thank you, Richard. I always feel safe with you.’

  Margaret stood in the main yard of Saumur Castle, watching the man who had declared himself her protector teaching her brothers a thing or two about sword work. Her father was away to oversee the return of Anjou, busy with the thousand details of rents and estates he had won with the marriage of his daughter.

  As she came back to Saumur on that first day, it had seemed at first as if nothing had really changed. She was not properly a queen after the odd ceremony and England felt as far away as it had always been.

  She watched Suffolk correcting little Louis as he overreached in a stroke.

  ‘Guard, boy! Where is your guard?’ Suffolk said, his voice booming back from the walls.

  Margaret felt a wave of affection for the big English lord. Her father had returned briefly to Saumur after a week of riding with the king. Seeing his daughters, he’d told them gruffly to fetch their mother, giving orders with his old authority. The moment when Suffolk had stepped forward and cleared his throat had become one of the most cherished memories of her young life.