Queen by Right (66 page)

Then a shawm’s alarming wail from the watchtower broke the quiet of the Shropshire countryside. Cecily’s horse shied briefly and her bird fluttered its wings at the sound. A sudden fear gripped her.

“There, there, my beauty,” Cecily soothed the bird and called to a groom. “Take Niniane, I pray you, and Piers,” she called out, “I will ride back.”

She turned her horse around, anxious to return to the castle and see who it was who came unannounced. An air of tension had gripped the castle and little town ever since June, when its lord had returned with his family after being excluded from a Great Council meeting called by the queen.

“We have heard she means to try and indict us all,” Richard had seethed, when he had been apprised of the meeting. “We have sent letters of protest to the king, but it seems he listens to none but her. Salisbury returns to Middle-ham and Warwick to Calais, and we shall remove to Ludlow.”

Cecily had felt a cold frisson at his words. She knew why the three Yorkist lords were returning home. It was clear that they would need to muster forces or they would be vulnerable again, especially as Lancaster-held lands now spread their tentacles around Richard’s, Warwick’s, and Salisbury’s estates in the midlands and Yorkshire. And now the queen was holding court with her young son in Cheshire, north of Ludlow, and Henry was east in Coventry.

Richard had sent word to Salisbury and Warwick that they and whatever forces they had mustered in the last two months should reunite at Ludlow, where they would once again petition the king to refute the allegations against them that the queen and the council had issued in June.

Whistling for Priam to release the quail and return, Piers watched as Cecily took off at a gallop down into the woods that ended at the Dinham Bridge. He grinned and shook his head. “That be our duchess,” he said to the groom, starting after her.

After dismounting, her heart still racing, Cecily flew up to the ramparts in time to see the first of hundreds of troops marching toward her and reaching the fields by Ludford Bridge. With a sigh of relief, she recognized the green and yellow banners with the Montagu eagles. Salisbury, she thought, shading her eyes from the sun as she watched the ragged lines of soldiers trudge up to the banks of the Teme. She heard shouts from the inner bailey and ran to the other side of the roof to look down on the melee of yeomen hustling into a neat formation in response to the commands of their captain. This was an honor guard for the earl, she deduced. Needing to don a suitable gown, she picked up her skirts and hurried down the stairs.

“Ah, there you are, doctor,” Cecily greeted Constance a few minutes later, as Gresilde struggled with a knot on one of the sleeves of her bodice. “I think we have need of you. It seems my brother is approaching and the duke has requested I attend him.”

“Aye, your grace,” Constance replied, picking up the discarded riding habit.
“I was told there are hundreds more troops making camp with ours. It is a veritable legion.”

Cecily grimaced. For once she wished she had not agreed to stay with Richard at Ludlow, knowing Salisbury and Warwick would come with their armies. I should have taken the children to Fotheringhay for safety, she thought. But now I am here, I must be strong for the children and for our loyal servants. She gazed fondly at her dear Constance, the plump, motherly Griselde, Beatrice, who now attended Margaret as well, and the young local tiring woman who was helping to dress her. Finally, after a critical inspection in her long silvered mirror, Cecily, regal in her scarlet and white gown, proclaimed herself ready to take her place with her husband.

The gallery from her apartments looked down into the great hall, where she saw her husband standing on the dais. A surge of pride overcame her as she saw he was flanked by her two oldest sons. She paused, turning to her attendants and putting her finger to her lips. Half-hidden by an arch, she studied her boys, both in short jackets and parti-colored hose, as though she had not seen them for years.

Ned was seventeen and towered above his father and Edmund, and indeed most of the other men assembled in the hall. She had been astonished by his height when he had arrived at Baynard’s before Love-day, but he had grown even more since then and now stood at more than six feet. His red-blond hair framed a handsome face with wide, warm blue eyes, sensual mouth, and her own long, straight nose. Since taking up residence in Ludlow again, Ned had been reprimanded more than once by his father for dallying with some of the young girls in the town. Aye, he is the next for whom we must find a marriage partner, Cecily thought wryly. Standing confidently upon the dais, awaiting his uncle, Edward’s eyes roamed the room, giving a nod here and a smile there as he recognized someone. Nearby stood his and Edmund’s tutor, Robert Apsall, now arrayed in more soldierly garb, and Edward raised a hand in salute. The proud mother watching her son thought he looked like a king or a god.

On Richard’s other side, and plainly less comfortable as a focus of attention, stood her beloved Edmund. His bright blue eyes never wavered from his father’s face, as Richard conversed quietly with his sons. Taller than his father but without Edward’s stature, Edmund had not yet reached full maturity at sixteen. Cecily saw only the sensitive boy she had always adored, and she shuddered to think of him wielding a sword and doing a man harm, or, even worse, being harmed by another man.

Hearing horses clattering into the courtyard, she hurried along the gallery and down the stairs to join Richard, trying not to imagine where this massing of troops was headed.

A
S THE MOUNTED
retinue clattered through the gatehouse arch and dismounted, it was clear to those waiting in the courtyard that Richard of Salisbury’s troops had encountered trouble on their route from the Yorkshire dales.

Striding through the honor guard and taking the great hall steps two at a time, Salisbury was inside the magnificent hall before the steward could announce him. As her brother strode past Cecily standing to the side of the dais with her other children, she gave him an anxious smile. His blood-splattered tabard and shredded chain-mail leggings told of combat. Curious retainers soon surrounded him and his entourage, who were equally disheveled and bloodied. Constance ran forward to one deathly pale young knight whose arm, crudely bandaged, was still bleeding, and hurried him off to the infirmary.

Salisbury wasted no time getting to the dais and informing Richard, “We were forced to do battle on our way here. I would ask, Brother, that you see to our wounded.”

Cecily clutched Meggie’s hand so tightly that the girl squeaked, “Mam, you are hurting me.” Not another battle, Cecily thought, her stomach lurching. Dear God, what is happening?

Richard told the steward to see to the wounded and then turned back to Salisbury. “The king engaged you? But he is still at Coventry, my informants tell me.”

“Nay, your grace, ’twas the queen who attempted to cut us off at Blore Heath, but we defeated her, God be praised.”

“The queen!” Richard cried. “Who was in command? And how many troops did she have at her disposal? Certes, enough to engage you, to be sure.” Salisbury gave an unpleasant bark of laughter. “’Tis said there were more than six thousand of her men there, and we were outnumbered three to one. Thanks to our scouts, who saw Lancaster banners flying over a high hedge on the heath, we were alerted to the possibility of a force in our path concealed behind the hedges not far from Hempmill Brook. I drew up my battle line far enough from whatever archers lurked behind the hedge, and we hurriedly brought up the guns and donned armor. After a fruitless parley, the archers let fly, but their arrows fell short of their mark—as did ours.”

The household was now fully attentive, creeping forward to hear better. Salisbury obliged them by turning to address the entire company.

“Our position was less than ideal,” he said. “At that point, I had no way of knowing how many men were against us, and so I sought to fool them with a ruse and bring them out of hiding.”

Richard arched a brow. “Do let me guess, my lord. You sounded the retreat?”

“You are partly correct, your grace. I sent the middle section of my force fleeing in the opposite direction, and this proved enough to tempt the enemy from their defensive position. But when my center turned around and surprised the attackers, we were able to inflict heavy casualties on that first charge. I know not how we staved them off, outnumbered as we were, but our men fought valiantly and some of the queen’s soldiers chose to come over to our side.” Cecily’s ears pricked up at that, for to desert the king and join the rebels meant treason. It told her that many Englishmen must believe in her husband’s cause. “God must have been on our side that day,” Salisbury was finishing, “for we won the field and chased the stragglers many a mile.”

“How many slain, Brother?” Richard asked.

“I did not stay to count, but on the king’s side—perhaps four thousand. Our ranks lost close to one thousand, it pains me to say, good and loyal men every one, God have mercy.” Then he told Richard, “My two younger sons were taken prisoner, so I have heard, trying to get quarter for some of our wounded. God help them.”

Richard put a sympathetic hand on his brother-in-law’s arm and murmured an acknowledgment. Observing Cecily over Richard’s shoulder, Salisbury quickly descended the few steps from the dais to greet her, apologizing for his disheveled appearance.

“I am sorry for Thomas and John, Richard. We shall pray for their safe delivery,” Cecily told him, imagining that it could have been her own sons. She sighed. “So it has come to this, Brother. York must fight Lancaster?”

He took her hand in his and nodded. “So it seems, Sister. We were set upon, and we needed to defend ourselves. This leaves no doubt that the queen is bent on destroying us.”

“Could you not have parleyed further, my lord?”

Richard preempted Salisbury’s answer by gently asking Cecily to arrange for refreshment in his privy chamber so that he and her brother could plan their next move.

“And what of my eldest? What of Warwick? Is there word?” Salisbury asked anxiously as Cecily, obeying her husband, gathered her attendants and beckoned to the steward.

“I expect him within the week, my lord,” Richard replied. “He has landed from Calais, this I know. But now that you have been intercepted by the queen, I fear he may not arrive here unscathed either.”

W
ARWICK WAS MORE
fortunate than his father, although he avoided a skirmish by skirting his own city of Warwick, where the young duke of Somerset was lying in wait.

“It is clear the royal forces are uniting near Worcester,” Warwick told his father and uncle, as Cecily sat by the window of the solar and watched the hustle and bustle of soldiers in the inner bailey preparing for combat. Her idyllic summer was indeed over, she knew.

She glanced back at the three lords discussing their next strategy: her brother now at sixty, white-haired and stooped; Richard, with his prominent chin uncharacteristically covered in two days of stubble and his brow permanently furrowed from years of worry; and her somewhat aloof but highly intelligent thirty-year-old nephew, his hawk nose in profile and his mouth in a thin, hard line.

“We have drawn up a new petition,” Richard told Warwick, “that will also protest our loyalty. I have sent for the prior at Worcester to submit the bill to the king himself, and I pray the queen stays at home so the king may make up his own mind on this occasion.”

Edward suddenly made his presence known to the older men. “Father, may I have the honor of carrying the petition to the holy father?” Richard had been in the habit of inviting his eldest son to any and all conferences with Salisbury, but thus far Edward had been a silent witness.

Cecily half rose in her seat to protest this dangerous mission, for she was now convinced that the king and queen meant her family harm, but Richard forestalled her by answering Edward: “Nay, you may not.”

Salisbury gave his nephew a sympathetic grin, and Warwick clapped the young man on the shoulder and chuckled. “Your time will come, Ned, have no fear. You will be asked to do more than carry a petition, believe me.”

“I pray not,” Cecily piped up from her perch. “Let us hope the king will finally hear reason.”

“We have all wished for that before, my love, to no avail,” Richard said, going to her and kissing her hand tenderly. “So, O wise one, what would you have us do?”

“Anything that does not involve you all getting killed” was her quick retort. “I hear the bell for terce. I pray you excuse me while I go and ask God’s help in that wish.”

Three pairs of admiring eyes followed the duchess from the room, and as she turned to bid them a good afternoon, Richard blew her a kiss. With a heavy heart, she dragged herself to the round chapel and to the solace she always found there. But she wondered if even her own Virgin Mary could deter these men from plunging into certain disaster.

A
FEW DAYS
later, Richard Beauchamp, the bishop of Salisbury and well known to York and his brother-in-law, arrived with an offer of amnesty in response to the Yorkists’ manifesto.

“You may tell his grace the king this,” Warwick cried, insulted. He had stepped in front of the good bishop before his father or uncle could consult with or stay him. “We thank him for his offer, but we cannot accept. First, we have learned to our distress that a royal pardon has been worth nothing, even one ratified by Parliament. Shall I give you examples?”

The bishop listened patiently as Warwick cited instances, although Cecily could see perspiration on the prelate’s high forehead.

“Next, my lord bishop, we three—and there are other lords who are with us—have no trust in those who give the king counsel today. They have disobeyed King Henry’s orders, and we have therefore had to muster our forces to defend ourselves from them. Again I can give you examples.” Warwick listed several as the bishop shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Cecily was surprised that Richard and Salisbury stood by, seemingly content to let the younger man speak his mind.