This Son of York

by Anne Easter Smith

  After a few weeks, the routine became second nature to the youths. Up with the lark, they attended mass before breaking their fast. Richard would laugh as Rob’s stomach growled all the way through the service until they could fall on their breakfast of ale, bread, meat or cheese. Next there was food for their brains as they trooped into a wide chamber in the keep for serious studies that included not only the classics, French, law and mathematics, but the rudiments of music, dance and all the elements of chivalry. Being a knight meant more than mere skill with a weapon; it meant studying the great treatises of war and its tactics, and learning to have “all courtesy in words, deeds, and degrees. In other words,” Richard groaned to Rob one day as they were struggling with the dense text of The Government of Kings and Princes, “we must be perfect.”

  By midday, they fell upon the dishes prepared for dinner, which the earl and his family took with the household retainers. The wealthy earl would regularly have several oxen cooked for the company, and that was not only when he was entertaining. Known for his generosity towards the peasants, he would send out daggers, speared to the hilt with meat, to the villagers waiting hungrily outside the kitchen door.

  Richard particularly looked forward to this time in the day, and not just because of the food. As Edward’s brother, he had a special place at Warwick’s table and enjoyed feeling part of a family again. He never admitted it, not even to himself, but Richard was homesick for his own family—aye, even George. The earl had been absent often that summer. As governor of the north for the king, he had joined Edward to help keep safe the Northumberland border with Scotland. To tell the truth, Richard did not mind the earl’s many absences, because he felt more comfortable with the female members of the Warwick family. Anne Beauchamp, the countess, was an unassuming woman with kind eyes, and Richard liked her. She looked to her husband in all things, unlike Richard’s indomitable mother, yet Richard had noticed their marriage displayed none of his parents’ mutual affection. That the countess reserved for her two daughters.

  It was the eldest daughter, Isabel, who gave Richard’s heart its first flutterings. About the same age, they sat next to each other at table, and Richard’s pulse increased alarmingly whenever she turned to converse with him. A pretty blonde, Isabel had the palest of pale blue eyes, a pert mouth, and something that the pubescent Richard had recently begun to notice, breasts. Well aware of her charms at thirteen, she could have teased the young duke about his obvious interest. However, not yet experienced in the art of flirtation, she merely attempted to be nice to him, thus charming Richard further and increasing his timidity. He took to stuttering responses when she addressed him, which made the younger daughter, Anne, giggle. Isabel confided to Anne that Richard reminded her of a sad, bleating sheep. Most humiliating of all, Richard would wake up in the night and find his linen nightshirt wet after dreaming of the earl of Warwick’s beautiful daughter.

  Discovering Richard scrubbing his own shift one early morning, Rob Percy tried to hide a grin. “Stop spying on me,” Richard commanded, trying to conceal the nightshirt behind the basin.

  “Dreamt of Isabel, did you?” Rob asked casually, and laughed when he saw pretended incredulity on his friend’s face. “It happens to us all, Richard. Every single one of us. No need to be ashamed; in fact you should feel proud. ’Tis the beginning of manhood.”

  Richard scowled. “Most unmanly and disgusting. I shall stop dreaming at once.”

  Rob guffawed and motioned for Richard to continue with his washing as he explained other bodily changes he thought Richard might be noticing. “Soon you will be desiring to touch females more often than you care to admit, and you must learn to curb those urges before they get you into trouble.”

  And so Richard listened to a much more pleasant—if less expert—explanation of the passage of boy to man than the usual father-to-son talk. He had not forgotten Edward’s clumsy attempt to explain, but he recalled more vividly his conversation with Will Hastings’ page. What happened when a man and a woman got between the sheets now became much clearer. He grinned at Rob: “Have you tried it yet?”

  The ruddiness in Rob’s cheeks, due to more than the Yorkshire weather this time, was not lost on Richard. “You have, you rogue! What was it like, Rob, you have to tell me. Who was it? Was it with…” he dared not breathe Isabel’s name; he would die if it were Isabel.

  “When you are thirteen, I will tell you, but not before, and certes,” he retorted, guessing, “it was not with Isabel. Are you so ignorant? Girls like Isabel are not to be dallied with, and certainly not swived.” Richard winced at the unpleasant peasant word. “Have you not learned anything from our lessons in chivalry about loving a noble lady? You speak prettily to her, write poems to her, sing songs to her, dance with her, but you do not bed her. That is reserved for her husband alone.”

  “Then I shall just have to marry Isabel,” Richard declared, squeezing the rest of the water from his nightshirt.

  “For you, ’tis not impossible, but until you are fully a man, you should practice on a wench beneath you,” Rob told him, enjoying his play on words, which he saw was lost on Richard. “From all I have been told, lust comes before love. Although in my case…” he tailed off, a wistful note in his voice.

  “Do you love someone, Rob? I think I love Isabel, but how do I know?”

  Rob was tired of answering questions; typical of lads his age, he could be forgiven that he wasn’t sure if what he felt for the gentle blacksmith’s daughter was love or lust—all he knew was that he was happy when he was in her arms.

  “Better hurry up and get dressed or we will be late for mass,” was all Rob could think to say, thwarting Richard’s desire to know more. Richard had observed his parents’ great love: how they had often caressed each other even in their children’s presence; the lingering kiss they used to share whenever they had to be parted; and the unbridled joy with which they reunited. Thus Richard had grown up thinking this was the normal way for a husband and wife to behave. After his conversations with Ned, and by eavesdropping on the older boys in the henchmen’s quarters, he was learning that love could come from elsewhere besides marriage. It at once titillated and discomfited him.

  At mass, he prayed he and Isabel might be wed soon, so he wouldn’t have to choose.

  “Ready!” shouted the indefatigable Master Lacey to the two squires at either end of the lists. Richard and Rob each lowered the visor on their helms, adjusted their wooden ecranches strapped on their left hands to shield their chests and held their lances raised to heaven.

  “Charge!”

  Urging his mount into a canter along the division between the paths, Richard began the graceful levée of precisely lowering his lance to be level with the torso of his opponent thundering towards him. He wished he could see more than Rob’s hips astride the horse through the narrow slit in his visor, but using the skills he had been taught at the quintain, he knew how to balance his blunted lance and point it at a spot above what he could see to hit his target squarely. The idea was to deal a blow to shield or chest that would unhorse one’s adversary, which would put a real knight in his cumbersome harness at a disadvantage on the ground. Often, the fight would continue on foot.

  The thudding hooves echoed in his own beating heart, and he felt the blood coursing through his veins, his senses heightened both to hit the opponent and to brace for the impact to himself from the other lance. Rob usually bested Richard, being the more experienced and larger youth, but today Richard felt invincible. He tightened his grip on the lance, steadied his body in the cocooning saddle and smote Rob firmly and cleanly in his mid section, surprising his usually cocky opponent. Wobbling to his right, his lance missing its target, Rob slipped from his saddle and onto the ground, his horse cantering aimlessly away.

  When Richard snapped up his visor, he was grinning. He wheeled his horse and trotted around the list to make sure his friend was uninjured. Seeing Rob gingerly get to his feet, he said: “I took your advice, Rob. I decided it
was time I became a man. Besting you was my first goal.”

  Rob lifted off his helmet and wiped his brow. “I wish you had started with a female conquest, damn you,” he grumbled. “I think I have hurt my shoulder.”

  “At least it wasn’t your pride,” Richard replied, more seriously. “You hurt that every time you unhorsed me.”

  Muffled angry sounds gave Richard pause as he lifted his hand to knock on the earl and countess’s solar door one September afternoon. He had been summoned.

  Warwick had been absent for much of that summer, most of it helping to retake the Northumberland castles that guarded the Scottish border, and some of it in the south negotiating a marriage contract for the king with a French princess. He seemed indefatigable to Richard. The earl had ridden into the castle yard that morning and disappeared into his apartments without pausing to acknowledge the household dignitaries lining the steps to greet him. The uncharacteristic lapse had been reported to the henchmen after their training in the tiltyard and had given rise to speculation that the earl was on important business.

  Probably relieved they were stationed on the outside of the carved oak door, the two guards stared stoically ahead as the young duke of Gloucester waited for a pause in the shouting before knocking. Eventually, he was given permission to enter the chamber with an impatient, “Come!”

  An overturned chair and the shards of a Venetian goblet littering the floor, its ruby contents already soaked up by the rushes, also gave Richard an inkling that this was not to be a cozy afternoon of pleasantries. The hawk-nose stood out between scarlet spots of anger on Richard Neville’s cheeks as he acknowledged the king’s brother’s deferent bow with a curt one of his own. Warwick’s steward cowered on the other side of the bright solar, out of reach of anything else the earl might feel the need to hurl, and he also reverenced Richard, relieved for the interruption.

  Dispensing with the usual niceties, Warwick launched the question like a bolt from a crossbow: “Were you a party to this? Well, were you, cousin?”

  Richard recoiled as though struck by the imaginary arrow, a worried frown creasing his forehead. “Party to what, my lord?” he replied, as calmly as he could. His first thought was of the hawking expedition that Rob and another of the knight apprentices had gone on the week before without proper escort. Sweet Jesu, someone must have seen me climb onto Rob’s shoulders and slip through the small opening at the back of the mews, he decided, and braced himself. But why had the rat waited a week…

  “Your ungrateful brother has taken him a wife—in secret!” Warwick spat, stunning Richard into openmouthed astonishment. The man was beside himself with fury, and as his fist thumped the table the other goblets danced. “The king has wed a commoner—and without my permission.”

  “W…wed? Ned wed?” was all Richard could manage.

  Seeing the bemused look on the youth’s face, Warwick lowered his voice. “Your Ned has made a fool of me and a fool of England—nay, he has done worse than that: he has betrayed England and his crown. And all so he could poke his pestle in a paltry widow of no account.”

  Richard found his tongue and launched a barrage of questions. “Who is she? When did this happen? What did my mother say? Was he not intended for a princess of France—a match you had arranged, my lord? Is it not she?”

  Warwick gave a short bark of laughter and endeavored to calm himself. “If I shouted just now, forgive me, Richard. I can see by your face and your stream of questions that you are as much in the dark as I was.” Richard breathed more easily, but the lull did not last long before Warwick was railing at Edward again. “I put him on the throne; I brought the northern lords to him; it was my brother who turned the Lancastrians away once and for all; and I am the only one Louis of France will listen to.” Warwick had no qualms about sounding his own trumpet, truly believing every word he said. Richard would later learn how inflated Warwick’s truths were. The man was quite convinced he was the kingmaker that the common people had dubbed him. In truth, he was the most powerful noble in the kingdom and Richard’s patron, and the impressionable youth was young enough to believe him.

  The small door in the panelling beside the fireplace opened and the worried countess hurried in. “My lord, I regret I was not below to greet you. I was with the pantler,” she said, going straight to her husband, who formally kissed her hand. “I heard angry voices and came as quickly as I could. Is all not in order?” Becoming aware of Richard’s presence, she gave him reverence, but noticing the up-turned chair and broken glass, she gasped, “Who did this? What has happened, my lord? Were you not at Reading with the king?”

  “Never fear, my dear,” Warwick assured her, swiftly righting the chair, “all was readied for me here. It was my temper, ’twas all. I brought it with me, and it got the better of me. I apologize if I have upset you. And aye, I left Reading two days ago. God help me, I had to leave or I might have embarrassed myself.” Seeing his wife’s confusion, he patted the chair. “Why don’t you take a seat. You might as well hear the story from the start along with Richard.”

  “Story? What story?”

  Thus, as the steward stooped lower than his station to pick up the broken shards of glass, Warwick began to pace before the fireplace, stirring up the dust from the rushes so the particles danced in the sun’s rays.

  “The king, my cousin, the lecherous young fool, has succumbed to temptation one time too many, this time to dangerous effect. What is it they say: when the prick goes hard, the brain goes soft? Forgive me, Anne, my dear,” and he held up his hand to ward off an admonishment. “It appears Edward’s lustful eye fell upon a widow of no import standing prettily with her two little sons beneath an oak at her home in Grafton Regis.”

  “Is that not where Jacquetta of Bedford lives?” Lady Warwick interrupted, “that upstart Woodville’s wife?”

  Warwick nodded. “Aye, you have it right, my lady. The widow is her daughter. She is a beauty, in truth,” he admitted, “but she is naught but a commoner’s daughter, a mere baronet’s widow, five years Edward’s senior, and,” his voice rose to a crescendo as he expostulated, “not fit for a king!” And he pounded his fist on the table again.

  “Gently, my lord,” his wife chided him, “we don’t want the servants gossiping. Why do you not calm down and tell us how this came about. Richard here appears as perplexed as I am. This has come as a shock to him, too.” Grateful for her concern, Richard nodded.

  Warwick stood with his back to the fireplace, his restless fingers pulling at his lower lip as he stared into the middle distance trying to frame his thoughts.

  “We had gathered at Reading for a Great Council mainly to discuss the scarcity of money in the mint. In the midst of what is being dubbed the ‘silver’ council, I was reporting on my progress with King Louis for Edward’s marriage to Bona of Savoy when Edward, from the throne, held up his hand for silence. Stretching out those endless legs of his, an infuriating smirk of satisfaction on his face, he allows that he is grateful for all my efforts but that marriage with a French princess was out of the question because…and he does stammer a bit here, having difficulty hiding his own guilt as he confesses…’because I am married already.’” He watched with grim satisfaction as both Richard and his wife gasped in shock.

  “Pandemonium broke out, as you can imagine,” Warwick continued. “God help me, I stood there stupefied, my eyes bulging, my mouth opening and closing like some brainless carp.”

  “Jacquetta Woodville is of noble blood, my lord,” the countess ventured. “Her brother is the count of St. Pol and she was duchess of Bed…”

  “She married a commoner, madam,” Warwick interrupted her rudely, “which makes her a commoner and all her brats commoners. He sank down heavily on the chair at the other end of the table, his shoulders slumped over his clasped hands. “’Tis the end of my influence with the king, I fear. He has made it clear that he intends to rule without my guidance. I shall support him, I suppose, but I can never forgive him for this humiliation of
me.”

  Richard, shaken by the news, desperately tried to find an excuse for his beloved brother’s thoughtless action. Despite his inexperience in politics and diplomacy, he knew Edward had transgressed by squandering an important alliance with Louis of France.

  “I…I am sorry if my brother has offended you, my lord,” he ventured, stepping forward. “For all the efforts you have made on the king’s behalf, I thank you. I may regret Ned’s action, too, but as his brother, I must forgive him.” Richard so admired Warwick, who had risen from out of his father’s shadow and who was now perceived as an even greater power than the king, that he feared he would be dismissed from Warwick’s service before he had completed his training. “I apologize for my brother’s disrespect to you, my lord, but please know that as long as I remain under your patronage, as I hope you will allow, you have my loyalty—as does Edward, our sovereign lord.”

  Warwick looked up at the slight young man and noticed Richard had grown in height as well as stature. Impressed by the earnest youth’s directness, and his anger somewhat abated, he admired the boy. Here was someone he could trust, his instincts told him. “Well said, Richard. I own I am proud to have you in my household.” No fool, Warwick was aware of Richard’s fear, and assured the youth: “You will serve out your three years here with my blessing.” Richard’s heart soared. It was one thing to have the grudging approbation of Master Lacey, but to earn the earl of Warwick’s praise was quite another. “Now go and find my daughters. Is it not time for dance instruction? They will be in need of a partner.”

  “Especially little Anne,” the countess agreed, relieved by the change of topic. “She has such affection for you.”

  Richard gave a slight bow, but he had every intention of asking Isabel to dance, not the baby, Anne. Although at this point, dancing seemed a frivolous pastime after hearing of Edward’s reckless behavior. At the door, he turned: “May I know the name of my new sister-in-law?”