The Dragon and the Rose (3 page)

After the battle at Barnet on April 14, where Henry VI was again made captive, the days passed like the wains of the peasants, slowly and with creaks and groans as accompaniment. The news of the battle of Tewkesbury reached them through a messenger from Margaret's husband. The queen had been taken; the prince, Henry VI's heir, was dead. The Lancastrian cause lay dead, too, murdered along with sixteen of its noblest and most powerful adherents. Buckingham had not taken sides; if Margaret came into her husband's protection at once, his older brother's influence with Edward would keep her safe.

Henry knew that Jasper had not been at Tewkesbury and felt nothing but relief. He could not understand why his mother should become almost hysterical with crying, clutching at him, kissing him and holding onto him as if she would never let him go.

A few days later, however, Henry saw his uncle enter Pembroke . . . a sleepwalker. Then he fled from the awful knowledge that Buckingham's influence could not save Jasper. The boy avoided his beloved uncle to wrestle alone with the love and fears that tore at him. Must he follow Jasper or his mother? The loneliness only increased his torment, and he sought wise counsel where he had always found it, in his mother's chamber.

When he entered, his mother was kneeling on the floor, embracing Jasper's knees and wailing. Henry stood rooted at the door.

"I will not do it. They would hunt us down to the ends of the earth." Jasper's voice sounded dead. "I will run no more. I will fight and die here where I belong. God knows" —his sudden anguish rose over Margaret's moan—"I tried to reach them in time. We fought our way half across England. We could have turned the tide of that battle, but we came too late. I will not be called a traitor by those few of us who still live!"

Jasper tore himself loose from Margaret's grasp, but Henry fled before they saw him. He knew nothing of what happened between them on the following two days, but midmorning of the third day shouts of alarm filled Pembroke. The drawbridge was lifted, and men-at-arms ran to take up defensive positions. Whatever his mother had planned to do, she had waited too long. The time had come to fight and die. Henry shook, whether from fear or fever he did not know, but his shame drove him forth. Dressing quickly, he seized his sword and ran out.

"What has happened, uncle?"

Jasper turned, and Henry became light with relief. Whatever the evil, it had some good mixed with it. Jasper no longer looked dead or afraid; he was very simply angry.

"Our own people have turned on us," he growled. "That is Morgan ap Thomas out there who demands our surrender."

Henry knew perfectly well what the defensive power of Pembroke was. The tactics of war were as much a part of his everyday lessons as Latin, French, swordsmanship, and horsemanship. "They will have a long wait," he said quietly.

"May the souls of that clan writhe everlastingly in hell! Morgan's brother David is on his way with another force—Morgan says a larger one."

"Then, we will have to fight"—Henry laughed—"if he does not lie. The Welsh fight well, but they lie better."

The anger died out of Jasper's face, and an expression Henry could not judge replaced it. "My God," he said softly, "you are a man indeed, though you have little enough growth to tell of it."

A few months past Henry would have been flooded with pleasure at such praise from his idolized uncle. Now he knew that Jasper was a man as he was a man—though a man he loved, and loved to please. Still, he remembered how, as a child, he had often fooled Jasper by pretending illness.

He put the fond memory aside. "Uncle, can we parley with them for a safe-conduct for my mother? Buckingham has promised her free pardon if she yields. She told you?"

"Ay. I thought of it, but I dare not. I cannot trust Morgan's promise. I am a fool—ten times a fool. She begged me to fly with you the day I arrived, but I would not listen."

"With me?" Henry's eyes widened. It had never occurred to him that he might not be included in the pardon.

"I thought running and hiding would kill so frail a child," Jasper sighed, more to himself than to Henry. "And what is life as a hunted exile? Better to be dead after a short terror than to live constantly with fear."

Outrage blocked out all other emotions in Henry. "Why, if my mother is pardoned, am I excepted?"

"Because you are a man, and she is but a woman."

"Surely Edward cannot plan to destroy every male who favored King Henry?"

Jasper studied his nephew's eager face. This was no helpless child, however frail. Margaret might well be right when she insisted Henry was exceptional and that there was still hope for the Lancastrian cause. But whether another chance for freedom would come or not, or if Henry were captured to die on the block, it was high time for him to know why he must run or die.

"No, Henry. Edward, may he be damned, is not senseless. He will pardon those he can pardon safely. You, my boy, he cannot pardon—ever. Your mother is the granddaughter of John Beaufort, the grandson of Edward III.
Royal blood runs in your veins. No, this damnable Edward will not soon forget. How can he, when your great-grandfather was brother to Henry IV?"

"Half brother," Henry responded mechanically. He knew his ancestry, but he had never known, never been told, how it might threaten him. "But he was a bastard."

"Has a bastard never sat upon a throne?" Even in the midst of their danger Jasper had to laugh at the boy's fresh ignorance in such matters. "The William who conquered England, another of those relatives of yours, was a bastard."

The juxtaposition of bastard and conquest clarified matters indeed. Edward himself had his throne by conquest and would be only too aware that divine right was but a feeble weapon. Here was Henry, the last male descendant of John of Gaunt. Even a bastard line barred from succession might serve as a rallying point for rebellion.

"Harry"—Jasper was no longer laughing—"you were
not
excluded from the pardon offered your mother. She believes, and I think: she is right, that it was offered her in order to lay hands on you. You understand that whatever fine words Edward says or sweet promises he makes, you are too dangerous to him to be safe."

Henry merely raised his brows. In this moment he had lost all the serenity of his boyhood, and he was numb.

Jasper saw only his calm. "To think: that I needed to learn from a boy more than twenty-five years my junior how to face misfortune! But now, Harry, go tell your mother that I will come to her soon. I must make sure they are settling down to a siege and will not attack. God preserve me from being the means of removing·one of Edward's worries! I will have you safe out of here to plague him yet."

In the event, their escape did not prove difficult. Because the taking of Pembroke castle would have cost many lives, and because old loyalty to Jasper still bound them, the brothers ap Morgan agreed to compromise. They would let Henry, Jasper, and Margaret go if the castle were yielded without a fight.

"But where will we go, uncle?" Henry asked.

"To France," Margaret replied. "Henry, your grandmother was Catherine of. France; for very shame Louis cannot deliver you up to Edward."

"Of course." Henry forced a smile, but he felt only distaste.

"Will you come with us, Margaret? I can—" Jasper stopped, caught up by something in the young woman's face. She was shaking her proud, high head, those determined lips almost invisible as she pressed them together and held back her tears.

"I cannot come with you, Jasper."

"Mama, no! Why?" Henry's new man's voice cracked alarmingly, but his composure held. Margaret, after all, had taught him control. Who knew it better?

"My son." Jasper felt an intruder when he heard the tenderness of that voice. "My beloved son. What would happen, the good Lord preserve us, if you should be taken? I cannot take the risk. Perhaps if I were at court, my influence with Buckingham could save you from—from—"

"From death." Henry's composure verged on cruelty.

Jasper looked from one to the other. He had underestimated both. In this bitter moment, the steel spirit of each showed. Margaret trembled all over, but her straight back never betrayed her royal breeding. Wrong side of the sheets indeed! Here was a queen, a lady of blood. No upstart like Edward's wife, the new "queen" of England.

Henry stood in frigid silence. The down on his cheeks belied the manliness of his bearing. That child whose temper tantrums had rocked the old fortress was gone forever. In its place was a young man whose icy stillness and control were almost frightening. Jasper had a single flash of regret for the laughing child he had lost. It was swallowed up in his enormous pride in these two dearest of all loved ones. He knew Margaret's courage of old; he would never doubt Henry's again.

"We will get away safe, mama." It was a promise.

"Yes," and that was all.

Margaret turned to Jasper. "There is another, a most important reason for me to remain in England. You must have someone you can trust at court. Who better than I?"

"But, Margaret, will you be safe?"

"My good, my dear Jasper. I will be safe. Do you forget who my husband is? Buckingham is fond of me, you know. I am such a complacent wife and so rich. How could Edward dare offend his brother by punishing me, when I come weeping to tell how the wicked uncle wrested my child from me and carried him away, I know not where?"

"They will never believe the tale."

"Why not? Have I not given up the joys of marriage, the delights of court life, for fourteen years only to be with my frail son?" She smiled. Were those blue eyes still more liquid? "What do Buckingham and Edward really know of me except that I am a stupid, doting woman with one sickly child. Would a doting mother—a young woman with no experience of the intrigues of court—send her son away and into dangerous exile when offered a free pardon for him?"

"Well, they will suspect, but Edward dare not offend Buckingham." Could Margaret make him laugh even now? "I would like to know, Margaret, how you intend to support the notion that you are stupid."

"I think that I will be pious and—and devoted to learning."

"Mmm, that is good." Something silent passed between them. "Priests and scholars travel a great deal. They will make fine messengers."

It was settled. Henry hardly heard the final exchanges. He was to leave the country of his birth, where, even as an outlaw or a prisoner, he would be known and loved. He was to beg sanctuary, even bread, among the French! He felt shame in every kindness or unkindness the French might offer him—Henry, descended from Edward III, the Hammer of France.

CHAPTER 3

The ship shuddered and groaned, heaved up, slid down, and the wind screamed through the rigging. The darkness was made absolute by sheets of rain that blinded the eye. There was nothing to see—black waves flowed into black sky. Pitch, roll, heave, roll. Henry lay face down on a coil of rope lashed so that he would not go overboard and be washed away by the waves cascading over the deck. He was not conscious of how the ropes bruised his body. He was not afraid. During his brief intervals of lucidity, he prayed only to drown, to die.

Another spasm of dry retching tore his body. There was nothing left in him to vomit. He was dried out by six days of unremitting nausea. Jasper hung over him, clinging to the ropes that bound him, alternately praying and cursing. If the storm did not soon abate, the boy would die. He huddled closer as the captain shouted some incomprehensible gibberish and seamen ran about the deck. Lifting the sodden cloaks that covered Henry, he pressed his body against his nephew's. Perhaps a little of his warmth would pass through the wet clothes. He wished that he had stripped them both naked when the ship was less lively. Now he dared not loosen Henry's bonds. Before he had been afraid to remove clothing in which money and jewels were hidden, but what did money and jewels matter? Henry was dying.

Some hours later a new motion knocked Jasper's head against the rail. He jerked upright and saw a sullen sky, mud-green waves flecked with white, and—straight ahead—land! They were safe. Henry! The boy was still. Dead? No, he was warm and breathing. The rain had stopped.

Jasper covered Henry with the topmost cloak, which was almost dry, and staggered to the captain.

"Where are we?"

"Not sure. Brittany, mayhap."

"You promised to take us to France."

Exasperation showed on the captain's weary face. "God makes the weather and the wind. I only try to keep them from sinking my ship. I told you before we left that a storm was coming."

"But the weather is better now. Can you not go on to France?"

"I could. It would not take much above a week to get there—if we got there at all with this battered rig. And what of the boy? Do you think he'd last another week?"

Jasper forgot the man's impertinence when he glanced toward Henry. Was he asleep or in that coma which precedes death? "Land, then! Make land as soon as you can."

He dared not touch the boy. If Henry were asleep, it would be cruelty to wake him. They docked at last, and Jasper released the boy's bonds, gathering him in his arms to carry him ashore.

"Uncle, I want to walk."

Relief swept over Jasper, and admiration for his tough little nephew. Henry seemed to need no more than steadying on his feet, though shudder after shudder shook him. His eyes took in the miserable town, the gray clouds, the sea.

"Is this France, uncle?"

"No, Brittany. I will buy horses so that we can ride to France."

"Must we?" Henry's voice betrayed his faintness.

"Not now, boy," Jasper replied, tightening his grip. "Rest and get warm. You must regain your strength."

"I did not mean now, uncle. I meant … Can we not seek a haven here? The Breton people are like our Welsh. I—I do not love France."

"Nor I, but you have some claim upon the French king and none upon Francis of Brittany. What is to stop him from selling you back to Edward?"

But the choice was not theirs. The innkeeper, sensing that this was no merchant family, sent for the local nobleman and delayed them with one excuse after another until his patron arrived. The gentleman recognized his own kind at once. He was kind, he was courteous, but he was also deft. In a very few days, Henry and Jasper found themselves being presented to the duke of Brittany.