This Son of York

by Anne Easter Smith

  “Place?”

  “I am a servant, young master. Some would call me a peasant. You are a lord, and you make the rules—the laws.”

  Dickon was learning his own place, although he had not felt different playing with the boys at Fotheringhay. What made one boy noble and another a peasant? It was not a philosophical question a boy of seven might usually pose, but Dickon was unusual. His lack of physical prowess had made him rely on his mind, which was expanding daily.

  “Then perhaps the laws should be changed,” Dickon said almost to himself.

  Piers winked at him. “Only the king can change the laws, Dickon. Are you going to be king?”

  Dickon grinned then, his pensive mood relieved by Piers’s good-natured jesting. “Nay, Master Falconer, I have no wish to be a king. Besides, King Henry has a son who will be king after him, Mother says. That is the way of the world,” he said, borrowing Margaret’s grown-up phrase and making Piers chuckle. “I shall never be king.”

  Still unaccustomed to his surroundings and never tiring of exploring the castle ramparts so high on Ludlow’s strategic hill, Dickon turned and ran along the wall walk to the Northwest Tower looking towards the darkly wooded Welsh hills. A glint of metal in the distance caught his eye—lots of metal, he saw now. Then he was aware of a peculiar thrumming. Unused to hearing the sound of men on the march, he tried to imagine what it might be. As the noise grew louder, and he could now see the snake of men, he knew. “It must be the king,” he gulped and raced along the precarious walkway to the closest watchman, who called: “I see ’em, young lord.”

  Grabbing his shawm, the sentry puffed out his cheeks and pushed his breath through the long, wooden instrument, deafening Dickon with its sharp wail of alarm.

  Fascinated but fearful, Dickon watched the army of mounted men and foot soldiers slide like a moving carpet of gleaming silver over the landscape. Then wasting no more time, he scampered down the stairs to tell George that an army was at the gates. He should have waited to recognize the standard in the green and yellow colors of his uncle, the earl of Salisbury. The castle was not under attack after all. Even so, the boy would not soon forget his first sight of an army on the move. What he had also not waited long enough to see was that this army, which had recently seen battle, was a bedraggled and wounded horde of men straggling through Ludlow’s streets towards the castle.

  When he joined his family in the courtyard, Dickon stared horrified as his uncle Richard Neville, earl of Salisbury, and his immediate entourage were helped from their mounts, blood and muck streaking their tabards and their beards. The colorful trappings on their horses were cut to tatters and dark blood caked the animals’ sides; one man’s head was wrapped in bandages, most of his jaw missing; dozens of foot soldiers supported others hobbling through the gateway on broken limbs or carried on makeshift litters; and the sounds of human suffering chilled Dickon to the marrow. He wanted to be sick, but he was a son of York and forced down his bile.

  Many of the wounded had dropped where they stood once inside the safety of the curtain wall. Cecily picked up her skirts and began to move from one man to another offering prayers and words of encouragement. The common soldiers stared in awe at the beautiful duchess, clad in crimson damask and silk, who tore strips off her petticoat to wipe a bloodied brow here or staunch a wound there. Dickon stood in George’s shadow and observed his mother with pride.

  Not long after her mistress jumped into the fray, Constance arrived with her bag of supplies and went from one victim to the other, ascertaining their condition and giving instructions to rush the badly wounded into her makeshift infirmary in the lodgings adjacent to the kitchen house. After years of caring for routine ailments of the household, she finally felt useful and was dispensing orders to the duke’s servants with the confidence of a battlefield commander. Then Dickon saw Meg run forward with a ewer of water and hold the vessel to the parched lips of as many as called for it. The women seemed fearless, and he could not stand idly by. As soon as he saw Meg’s pitcher was dry, Dickon picked up a pail and hurried to the well hard by the kitchen to fetch her more water. It felt good to him to be of use.

  “There’s a good boy,” Richard of York called, seeing his youngest heaving the bucket back to Meg. “These men have given their blood for our house. Help as many as you can. George!” he cried, striding towards the great-hall steps with Salisbury and his oldest sons, looking to his brother-in-law for a full report. “Make yourself useful, like your young brother.”

  Dickon waited his turn to fill his wooden bucket and then tentatively moved towards a figure lying awkwardly on his side. A battered tin cup lay abandoned on the ground, and picking it up, Dickon dipped it in the water, hoping to slake the billman’s thirst. He gently shifted the man onto his back and then jumped back in horror. The boy—for certes, he was no more than Meg’s age—had only half a face. His lips clung to where his mouth once met his cheeks, exposing his teeth and gums in a bloody, gaping hole. His remaining eye was fixed on Dickon, and he cried out something unintelligible so desperately that Dickon, overcoming his disgust, knelt down beside him and took the lad’s out-stretched hand. It was then he saw the young soldier’s other arm was missing below the elbow and a wad of blood-blackened linen had helped to stem the flow of blood. Constance had told him how every living creature only had so much blood running through its veins, and when it ran out unheeded as this poor lad’s had, even Dickon, young as he was, understood the lad must be dying.

  He searched the melee for Constance or any adult who might better save the boy than he, but, seeing everyone was already occupied, he reluctantly turned back and resorted to prayer. “Pater noster, qui es in coelis,” he recited, trying to comfort the billman with the familiar words that always helped him when he felt sad and alone. “Hallowed be thy name….” All at once he faltered as he felt a lifelessness in the fingers he held, and he knew instinctively the man’s soul had flown. “Requiescat in pace,” he whispered, crossing himself and carefully released the cold hand. Staring at the inert form, he suddenly imagined himself lying on a bloody field, his own life seeping into the soil, and he wept—as much for himself as for the unknown yeoman.

  Playing at soldier with George, Dickon had often feigned dying, but witnessing real death this day would forever change the boy’s understanding of the seriousness of war.

  Sobbing in Nurse Anne’s arms later, he wondered whether he wanted to be a knight at all. He doubted his courage to face awful maiming and death. He could not erase the image of the billman’s gray face and glassy eye, which would haunt his dreams.

  “And I did not even know his name,” he moaned, as Anne rocked the trembling boy in her arms.

  Much later, Dickon’s curiosity—and a good dose of Anne’s wisdom and chamomile infusion—took him down to the hall to join his mother, where her brother had been enthralling his audience by reporting on the battle with the queen’s army near Market Drayton. Dickon’s eyes were still red from crying, but Cecily was too engrossed in Salisbury’s tale to notice.

  “Praise God, we routed them,” Salisbury told York. “I will take credit for two ruses—one that feigned flight—which not only won the day but allowed us to make our way here without pursuit. As well, many of the queen’s men joined our side. It seems there are Englishmen who believe in your cause, Your Grace,” he told the surprised York. “’Tis a brave man who risks treason to join you.”

  York nodded, his gray eyes thoughtful. “How many slain?”

  The company gasped when they were told: “Our side lost a thousand good men, and our adversaries lost twice as many, but after the rout, when many of my soldiers followed the fleeing enemy and cut them down, ’twas hard to tell.”

  Dickon shrank back. One death from battle wounds had been terrible enough, his young imagination could hardly contemplate thousands.

  “Do you want to hear my ruse?” Salisbury said, and Dickon was startled to hear his uncle laugh. How can there be anything to laugh at? he wanted to
ask. However, he listened as Salisbury told a preposterous story about paying a priest to man a canon all night, who let fly a ball or two to pretend his army was still there. Dickon stared around at the amused courtiers and tried to comprehend how grown-ups could bemoan thousands of deaths in one breath and make a joke in the next. Still numbed and close to tears, he forced himself to join in the laughter, but whether his was from amusement, grief or relief, Dickon did not know.

  Chapter Three

  October 1459

  By the time Salisbury’s son, Richard, earl of Warwick, arrived from Calais to swell the Yorkist ranks, Dickon had grown accustomed to the sight of so many knights and foot soldiers milling around the castle yards. The adults were far too intent on plotting strategy, sending messengers back and forth to the king with new pledges of fealty, strengthening defenses, and seeing to the wounded to worry about the daily routine of the youngest members of the household, although George and Dickon were expected to adhere to their studies. Meg, at thirteen, was made to shadow her energetic mother around the castle, helping dispense medicine, food, and prayer—in that order—to the wounded, keeping York’s steward informed of dining and housing requirements for the castle’s growing occupancy, and supervising the duties of the duchess’s ladies and tiring women.

  It was unusual for a nobleman not to have contracted any of his three older children in marriage by now. York’s long absences from home, in an effort to rid the king of the influence of power-hungry dilettantes along with other worries, had left no time to plan any of his children’s futures. Dickon and George should already have been learning the chivalric arts from a relative or other patron, and Richard and Cecily had preferred to set up the older two boys with their own households at Ludlow under the supervision of a guardian until they came of age.

  With strict instructions to keep within Nurse Anne’s earshot, George and Dickon roamed the ramparts, watched the knights at practice, learned the art of wood whittling from idle soldiers, fished from the stew pond, or had their turn with the bow at the archery butts. George was a fine shot, Ned remarked one day when he had tired of the endless parleys of his father, uncle, and cousin of Warwick and had wandered out to coach his young siblings: “But do not discount young Dickon; for all his lack of height and heft, his skill will match yours soon, George.” George had accepted Ned’s compliment gracefully and even nodded an acknowledgment at Dickon for his; it was no hardship when he knew he could always best Dickon at wrestling.

  There was something about having so many of their family about them that invigorated the duke and duchess and made this Yorkist stronghold a castle of confidence, despite the threat of attainder hanging over each lord. No one could have imagined the main protagonists being accused of treason for refusing to attend a Great Council in June, for they were some of the most powerful men in England. The truth was the queen had made sure the Yorkists had not been invited. Her influence and that of her closest adherents was creating a weakling of the king. It was to York’s credit that he still believed in Henry’s goodwill and reluctance to fight. And so he persisted in petitioning his sovereign to refute the allegations made by the queen that he, York, was a traitor. Yet, still he was refused an audience as the royal army moved ever closer to Ludlow.

  York had taken this opportunity of having all his sons together to instill in them the ideals of chivalry that so governed his own behavior. He had explained patiently to Dickon what the awful word “attainder” inferred. “It means being branded as a traitor. It takes away all your lordly rights. A good man never wants it uttered about himself,” he said at the end of another evening of a father-to-sons’ lecture (at least that was what Ned had disrespectfully dubbed them). “It is a hated word in our family and one I have spent my life trying to live down.”

  Dickon’s eyes widened. “Why, Father? What did you do wrong?”

  “’Twas not I, boy, but your grandfather, also named Richard, God rest his traitorous soul.” He pulled Dickon close to his chair, gripping the lad’s arm a little too tightly. “I shall tell you now, Dickon, as I have told your brothers before you, but we shall not mention it again.” His sharp eyes roved from one son to another for their assent. “My father was accused of plotting to kill King Harry—of Agincourt fame, you remember.” He paused, seeing Dickon nod vigorously. “He was tried, attainted and executed when I was only four. His head was stuck on a pike for all to see.” Finally letting go of Dickon’s arm, he uttered ominously, “such an ignominious way to die.”

  Dickon’s look of horror aroused York’s paternal concern, and he pulled the boy into an embrace. “My father was a traitor, you understand, and now there are those who whisper I am following in his footsteps. Never fear,” he added hastily, “’tis not true.”

  “Is that what the king thinks, too?” Dickon asked. “Why don’t you tell him you are not like your father?”

  York smiled. “So full of questions, young one. I know this is confusing, Dickon, but trust I have my reasons for standing up to my king and I intend no treason. King Henry has allowed dishonorable men to govern his subjects. The kingdom is suffering, and I have a duty to my country as well as to my king to set things right.” He sighed and held the boy at arm’s length.

  “Whatever happens in life, Dickon, never forget your loyalty to family, king and country. Loyalty must always come first, no matter how hard. ’Tis your God-given duty. And now it is especially hard for me. I have never been disloyal to the king, I swear, but the king has been disloyal to his subjects for a long time. I only want to make him see how that is weakening England. The counselors, and the queen, think I seek the crown. But by Christ’s nails,” he cried suddenly, raising his fist as though addressing those same accusers, “I do not.” Then seeing his sons’ startled expressions at his outburst, he softened his voice again. “As a royal prince, ’tis my duty to my country to keep trying to make the king see reason and dismiss the rats around him. Do you understand—all of you?”

  “We do, my lord Father,” Ned solemnly answered for them all, moved by his father’s vehemence. “And we support you to a man.” He smiled at Dickon, who was too engrossed in his thoughts to notice the gesture.

  “Is betraying someone the same as being disloyal, Father?” Dickon blurted, thinking now of his brother George.

  “Absolutely, my lad. You have the measure of it,” York answered, pleased. “I hope it never happens to you, Dickon, but in everyone’s life there comes a time when you may make a choice for the right reason but another will see it differently and accuse you of disloyalty.” He drew the boy once again into his arms and murmured, “Keep all of this close, my son, and remember, whatever happens, your father is not a traitor.”

  But Dickon’s worried eyes were fixed on George.

  And so this loyal house of England, this peaceful house of York, reluctantly prepared for war.

  Thirty-year-old Richard, earl of Warwick, walked among his troops dispensing a good word here, a laugh there and making sure his sergeants were keeping his army fit and ready for a fight. Soldiers polished their weapons; bowers replenished the invaluable long-bowmen’s sheaths with new arrows; farriers checked horses’ hoofs for damaged shoes; smiths forged news ones; grooms curried the nobles’ destriers; and Dickon found himself captivated by these fighting men and their daily routine. As well, his recent experience had made him less squeamish at the sight of blood.

  “What happens if a horse loses a shoe in battle?”

  “Suppose your bowstring breaks?”

  “I pray you, can I try and make an arrow?”

  “What’s the difference between a horse’s noseband and a cavesson?”

  The men obliged this multitude of questions with good-humored answers and lessons, impressed the boy had sought them out and wanted to learn. Warwick did not discourage his young cousin from dogging his footsteps when he went on his rounds, and in fact admired Dickon’s quiet, respectful way with the grizzled soldiers from his Calais garrison.

  “When
you are older, perhaps we can arrange for you to come to Middleham and learn your knightly skills with my master-at-arms. What say you, young Dickon?” Warwick asked.

  “I should like that very much,” the boy replied eagerly. “When will that be?”

  “In a year or so, I expect.”

  “Will George come, too?”

  Warwick shrugged. Perceptive, he had already determined during his few days in their company that George and Richard ought to be separated, and the sooner the better. He was surprised his uncle and aunt had not disciplined George about bullying his brother, but being a man of his time Warwick recognized that leaders of men were not made from soft childhoods. He turned to one of his Calais commanders and veteran of the French wars, Andrew Trollope, and asked: “Don’t you think this lad might make a soldier one day?”

  Dickon looked from one man to the other. He liked the burly Trollope with the ostrich feather in his cap, his ruddy cheeks, white whiskers and merry brown eyes.

  “Aye,” the knight nodded, smiling at the expectant face staring up at him. “I warrant the master-at-arms will knock the boy out of you right enough. You’ll need to build some muscle and put on some flesh before you wield a sword, though.”

  “I should like to learn to fight like you,” Dickon said. Still not far from his thoughts, however, he quickly added, “but I don’t want to be a billman. It’s too dangerous. I want to be a knight on a horse.”

  Warwick grunted, growing tired of the boy. “Certes, you will be a knight.”

  “Will you ask Father soon, my lord?”

  Warwick nodded absentmindedly as he walked back over the bridge from the outer bailey towards the great hall in the western curtain wall. Trollope bent down and told Dickon, “Fighting is not so bad, when you are properly trained, young ’un.” He winked. “I’ll remind his lordship, never fear.”