Wars of the Roses: Bloodline: Book 3 (The Wars of the Roses) (23 page)

Warwick shivered as he leaned against a bare stone wall with his brother George. The Archbishop of York had
grown a sight heavier over the previous year or so, though he still worked up a sweat in sparring with his brothers when they had the chance. Such idle hours had grown somewhat fewer since the arrival of the Woodvilles at court.

‘It is passing strange,’ George said. ‘In the summer, I complained about the heat. I remember it was unbearable, but the memory no longer seems truly real. With the white ground and frost in the air, I convince myself I would give anything to sweat once more – and if I did, I do not doubt I would yearn to return to this cold. Man is a fickle creature, Richard. If not the entire class of man, at least the bishops.’

Warwick chuckled, regarding his younger brother with affection. As an archbishop, George was a man of power and influence. Only cardinals in Rome truly outranked him, yet George was still youthful and smiled back at his brother with impish humour. The truth of their shivering was that no fire had been lit in the halls outside the king’s audience chamber.

Warwick had been kept waiting for an hour, though it had seemed like six. As his brother looked back with longing on the summer, Warwick recalled the days when he had been able to approach Edward without announcement, without being left to kick his heels in waiting chambers like a common servant.

The reason for the change was not a mystery. It had taken a little time, but Warwick had accepted at last that his fears were not misplaced. Elizabeth Woodville had taken a measure of the Neville influence over her husband and decided to ease them out. There was no other explanation for the way she had arranged her family like pieces on a
board. Less than a full year after her arrival at court, her father had become Earl Rivers and the royal treasurer. Two of her sisters had been married off to families of power, selected with care. Warwick could only imagine that the queen spent her time in the archives at the Tower, seeking out families who might bestow yet another title on her line. Her sisters would inherit houses and lands that otherwise would have reverted to the Crown or, in one case, to a Neville cousin. Warwick grimaced at the thought, though he knew it was no more than he would have done himself. Elizabeth had the ear of her husband – and Edward was a little free with his rewards for bedplay. Warwick and the Nevilles would have to endure; there was no help for it.

‘How fare your wards?’ his brother said, breaking into his thoughts. ‘Still making their fortune?’

Warwick groaned in memory of the day Richard of Gloucester and Henry Percy had been discovered in the market of Middleham, selling a selection of hams and bottles of wine from Warwick’s own cellars. One of the other stallholders had sent a runner to the castle and the boys had been captured and brought back. The memory still made Warwick flush in embarrassment.

‘I am sorry to say they have discovered betting now. Some lads from the village are perfectly happy to take their coins, of course – and then they fight and Mother or my wife is called to rule on an entirely new set of injustices.’

Warwick’s brother leaned closer, amused by the affection he saw.

‘I’m sorry you didn’t have sons,’ he said. ‘I can see you would have found joy in it.’

Warwick nodded, his eyes crinkling.

‘I have so
many
memories of you and John and me, with
the cousins, with those boats we made that sank, remember those? Or the horse we caught that dragged John half a mile, but he would not let go. Do you remember that? God knows I love my two girls, but it is not quite the same. Middleham was too quiet for a while, without us.’

‘My lord Warwick?’ a servant said.

Warwick winked at his brother and pushed off the wall. The archbishop patted him on the shoulder, passing him on to the great doors that led to Edward’s royal presence. They opened before him.

Gone were the days of empty rooms and silent, scurrying servants. Dozens of scribes sat at small tables along the edges of the long hall, copying documents. Others stood in small groups, discussing their business like merchants haggling a price. The court felt busy, full of bustle and serious intent.

Warwick had a sudden memory of finding the king alone in that same hall a year or so before. Edward had been in full armour, missing only his helmet and, for some reason, one metal boot, so that his bare foot showed. The king had been wandering through the castle with a huge jug of wine in one hand and a cooked chicken clutched in the other. Those days were in the past, it seemed, under Elizabeth’s influence. For the first time, Edward had a working staff to bear the weight of ruling the kingdom. His factor, Hugh Poucher, had been a man Warwick had come to like, one who could be approached and who would always listen. He looked for some sight of him, but the man was nowhere in evidence.

Warwick found himself following the servant through an antechamber and over to a long gallery of pale limestone. As they drew close, he heard the sound of an arrow
shot. Warwick flinched instinctively, as one who had faced such things in battle. The sound echoed strangely indoors, even in that great hall. The servant had caught his shocked reaction, Warwick realized with a touch of irritation. As they reached the gallery, the man introduced him and vanished, trotting away as if he had a dozen other things to do.

Edward stood with a drawn bow and a huge basket of arrows. A target of straw and cloth about as tall as a man had been wedged at the far end of the cloistered gallery, at least a hundred yards away. It would have been an easy distance for a true archer, but as far as Warwick knew, Edward had never shot a bow before. Most men could not even have drawn one, but the king seemed to have the strength in his sword arm. Edward had not glanced round, utterly absorbed in holding his bow steady. The target rested against oak panelling and two arrows had missed the straw circle completely. With the tip of a pink tongue showing in the corner of his mouth, Edward was the picture of concentration. He opened his hand and the arrow flew too fast to see, sinking to the feathers into the outer edge of the target. Edward smiled happily.

‘Ah, Richard,’ the king said. ‘I have a hundred marks resting on my skill with Sir Anthony here. Would you like to take a shot?’

Warwick glanced at the thick-armed knight who was watching him closely. Four of the Woodville men had been added to the ranks of the Garter order, giving them the right to enter the king’s presence as his most loyal companions. Warwick had known there would surely be one or two in attendance. He wondered if Edward was even aware that he spent very few waking hours without one of
the Woodvilles in his presence – and of course, his nights were spent with Elizabeth. It disturbed Warwick how completely the family had ensnared the young king. He had considered offering advice more than once, but criticizing a man’s wife was incredibly perilous. With an effort, he had kept his silence through every barb and thorn under his skin.

Anthony was perhaps Edward’s favourite of the Woodville males. Ten years older than the king, the big knight seemed to enjoy their sparring – and was perhaps the only one of the Woodvilles who could last more than a few moments in a tournament mêlée. There was a certain amount of bristling from him when Warwick had him in sight, as if the man wanted to be a threat, or had already decided Warwick was his enemy.

‘Your Highness, if you would allow Sir Anthony to return to his duties, I will try a shot or two with you. I do have some Privy Council business to discuss.’

Edward scratched one side of his face, understanding but unwilling.

‘Oh very well. Anthony, perhaps you would collect the arrows. I’ll have that hundred marks off you yet. I’m sure my lord Warwick will not take too much of my time.’

Warwick hid his dismay and bowed his head. He felt Anthony Woodville watching him and ignored the man until he was out of earshot.

‘How is my brother?’ Edward said before he could speak.

‘Happy enough now,’ Warwick replied. Some of the affection he had shown outside was still there to be seen. Edward looked closely at him.

‘Good. Axe and sword, though – perhaps the bow as
well, to build his shoulders. He was too weak before. Let me know if he gives you any trouble at all.’

‘Of course. His tutors say he is very quick in his lessons.’

‘Which will do him no good at all if he is too soft to stand in plate while another man tries to smash his face in,’ Edward said. ‘I was about as soft as wet leather when I went with you to Calais. Three years with the garrison made me the man I am today – under your command. Do the same with him, if you please. He is the youngest of us and he has been a child too long.’

Warwick eyed Anthony Woodville at the other end of the hall, trying to judge how much time he had. The man was wrenching and grunting at an arrow sunk into the wooden panelling. Edward saw him looking and grumbled in his throat.

‘Oh very well. Say what you have come to say to me.’

‘It is about this latest marriage, Edward,’ Warwick said in relief. ‘John Woodville is just nineteen. Norfolk’s mother is almost seventy. If Mowbray were still alive, he would petition for justice, you know that. Your Highness, I understand the Woodvilles wish for titles, but a marriage with such a gulf in age is a step too far.’

Edward had grown very still as he spoke, all his lightness gone. Warwick knew he was in exactly the dangerous position he had tried to avoid for a year. Norfolk had barely survived the battle of Towton, dying of some pestilence of the lungs just a few months later, which surprised no one who had seen him that day. It was a miracle he had lived to see spring.

‘Mowbray was a decent man, Your Highness – loyal to you when the world said he should have marched with
Lancaster. Norfolk’s mother is a Neville, Edward, so I take pride in his loyalty. Yet you would allow a beardless Woodville to sit at his hearth, kissing that mother’s wrinkled cheek? I think you and I owe his family a little more dignity than that.’

‘Have a care …’ Edward said softly.

He held the bow like an axe-handle, almost as wide as one at the centre point. Warwick had the sudden sense that Edward was imagining lashing out with it, some almost imperceptible play of the muscles which made him want to duck out of danger. He had seen Edward on the battlefield and knew very well what he could do. Yet he held himself still, and stared back calmly.

‘I do not dispute your wife’s right to find a good match for any one of her sisters or brothers, or her sons. Yet this one … this is a travesty, with half a century between them. When the old woman dies, the title will be his. How will she weep to have a stranger call her “wife” and take everything that was her son’s? This Woodville pup would be better off buying the title, Edward! To steal it in this way … it is diabolical.’

‘Your own marriage brought you great estates, Richard, did it not?’ Edward replied.

‘A marriage to a
young
woman, to produce my two beautiful daughters. As
you
have done, Edward. This loveless joining of Norfolk and Woodville is too obvious, too cruel. It will cause only unrest.’

In less than a year at court, the new queen had given birth to a daughter, Elizabeth of York as she was known. Edward’s wife was already pregnant again, as fertile as a young mare. Warwick had agreed to be the first child’s godfather, believing the offer to be an olive branch between
them. Yet at the baptism, the queen had leaned over to him and murmured that she longed for a dozen fine boys with the king. Her amusement at his expression had soured the day and troubled him ever since.

The worst of it was that the Nevilles had done much the same during his grandfather’s time, placing a dozen brothers and sisters into the noble families of England. Warwick had thought the marriage to the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk might be a point of weakness, but the expression on Edward’s face showed he was mistaken. Warwick realized the young king was utterly smitten, made blind and deaf by his wife’s skirts. There was true anger on Edward’s face as he sensed criticism of Elizabeth. Warwick had not seen him so enraged since Edward had stood in other men’s blood at Towton, five years before. He could not help shuddering at the sense of violence in the giant staring at him.

‘You have brought me your concerns, Richard,’ Edward said. ‘You are my counsellor and it was no more than your duty. I will consider them, but you should know I believe John Woodville is a fine man. He wears a hair shirt under his silks, did you know that? I saw it when he stripped to bathe in a river while we were hunting. His skin is like raw meat and he makes no complaint. He is a fine hand with a pack of dogs – and he is my wife’s brother. She wishes to raise him up. It pleases me to please her.’

Anthony Woodville was returning at last, having cut the last of the arrows from the woodwork with his knife. He was striding up the gallery, straining to hear the end of the conversation. Warwick took a step back and bowed rather than give the man the satisfaction. That said, he supposed
his words would be repeated from Edward’s lips to Elizabeth that evening. He could hardly ask that they be kept private from the king’s own wife. He waited for Edward to release him and walked away, feeling Woodville eyes on his back as he went.

Thirty horses had to be walked out one by one from their stalls in the foetid hold. It took time, and as he waited, Warwick stood frowning on the docks at Calais. The quays themselves were of dressed stone and iron blocks, but the walkways were of planking, stretching away to the warehouses and taverns along the front, all crushed together with never enough space. He had memories both good and bad of the port fortress. It had once been the gateway to English Normandy, the place where anything could be bought and sold, from apes and ivory to lavender and rubies and wool. King Henry’s weakness had put paid to all that.

The port was about as noisy and stank just as strongly as he remembered. A dozen ships rocked at anchor outside the sheltered waters, all waiting for the harbourmaster’s skiff to row across, their captains shouting insults to one another. No one could enter Calais without that permission, not with the cannon pointed out to sea to smash them to flinders. Gulls called in high voices overhead, swooping down to squabble over any smear of scales or fish guts.

On the long quays, eight merchant crews were heaving bales and barrels out of their holds as fast as they could, doing their best to distract and confound the English port tallymen who tried to keep track of taxes owed and a bewildering array of custom stamps, forged or real. Fishing boats bobbed in between and around them, the French
boatmasters holding up good examples of their catch. Warwick remembered the life and the cackle of the place, though it had taken on a twitching, feverish energy since his younger years. It had been just one port in thirty then, with all the coasts and two-thirds of France thriving under English control. He shook his head in sadness.

Calais was still worth thousands a year to the Crown, in taxes and profits both – and not one cloth yard, not one iron nail or haddock passing through, was strictly legal, not between two countries that had never declared a formal peace. Men on both sides had thrived in the uncertainty, using Calais as the entry point to all of France and Burgundy, even down to Sicily and North Africa, with enough bribes paid.

Warwick watched a wooden crate of oranges being yanked open, his gaze drawn to the splash of colour on the whitened wooden docks. The English merchant peering at them suddenly speared his thumb deep into the core of one, then licked the grease, nodding. Fruit in winter, from lands much further to the south where lemons and oranges still grew. Sugar from Cyprus or the Levant, even suits of armour from Italy, where a master smith might demand fortunes for his work. Warwick owned such a set himself, measured to his frame so that it fitted him perfectly and had saved his life more than once.

Warwick whistled and the merchant looked up, his suspicion clearing when he saw the earl’s surcoat crest. Warwick waited while the man’s servant ran up with three large oranges, for which Warwick tossed him a silver penny. Calais was still a place where fortunes were made, for those who had the eye to see it. Yet she was not what she had been.

The last of the horses were unloaded and saddled, and his men formed into a neat phalanx of armour and horseflesh to pass through the port. Warwick waved an arm and turned his mount away from the sea, heading along the main street to the walls that enclosed everything in the port town. They loomed over everyone alive inside, a constant reminder that this was a port in a hostile land, with walls twelve feet thick, to withstand a siege. King Edward paid for hundreds of men to keep those walls, often with wives and children who had never seen England. Calais was its own little world, with alleys and shops and smiths and thieves and fallen women whose husbands had died of disease or been drowned.

Warwick rode to the inner gate and presented his papers with the seal of King Edward to the captain there. At his back, thirty men in armour kept their talk small, sensing the earl was in a darkening mood. The only one who could not stop gazing around in amazement and happiness was George, Duke of Clarence. For the young man, the docks were spiced with exotic flavours and smells, entrancing every sense. As the gate opened, Warwick tossed him an orange and he caught it with a grin, pressing the strange fruit to his nose and breathing in.

The sight of George of Clarence so full of life went some way to ease Warwick’s gloom. Calais was the stepping stone across the Channel to a continent, he knew that. It was also a poor place to land if your destination was Paris, as his was. Far better to take a ship to Honfleur, even though it was no longer an English-held port.

As Warwick felt his horse stretch out into a canter, he let the animal have its head, after being confined and blinkered in a stinking hold. Horses could not vomit and a sea
crossing sometimes meant they suffered terribly, growing sicker and sicker but unable to empty their stomachs. It did them good to have a run, and the road ahead cleared quickly at the sight of horsemen thundering down it.

He heard Clarence give a whoop as the king’s brother came abreast of him. Warwick leaned forward over his horse’s neck, easing into a gallop, caught up in the pleasure of speed and danger. A fall might kill them, but the air was cold and sweet, filled with the promise of spring in the green verges.

Warwick found he was chuckling as he rode, almost gasping. He had been confined for too long as well, with two, almost three years of watching Woodvilles promoted to every position and post that carried a salary in England and Wales. It was pleasant to leave that behind him, in all senses.

He was old enough to remember when an English lord sailed to Honfleur and upriver to Rouen, then took a smaller boat along the Seine to the heart of Paris. Yet their fine warhorses could not be taken in fragile riverboats. It was true he would arrive with dust and sweat and grime clinging to every inch of him. He and his men would need another day to find rooms and bathe. Yet perhaps he would feel refreshed even so. He heard Clarence laughing as they clattered along a good road at a reckless speed.

Warwick looked back at the young man. Clarence resembled his older brother in some ways, though he had not grown as tall and was infinitely more amiable. As one who had watched Edward become a man, Warwick had been wary of another son of York at first, accepting his presence reluctantly. He supposed Edward’s brother was always likely to report the most interesting events back to
the king and queen. With the young Richard at Middleham, Warwick could never completely escape the sense of their eyes on him. Yet George of Clarence had an open face, without any guile or suspicious looks. It was with a twinge of sadness that Warwick realized he liked all the York sons. If it had not been for Elizabeth Woodville, he thought the Plantagenets and the Nevilles could have made an unbreakable bond.

On lesser mounts, they might have exchanged them at post-houses on the Paris road, one hundred and sixty miles from the coast. Like the most ancient roads in England, it was a clear, wide surface in good, Roman stone, running across what had once been the edge of Caesar’s Gaul. Merchants thronged its length, but dragged their carts and families sharply off the road when they saw Warwick’s knights flying.

Before the first morning ended, Warwick had twice been stopped by French captains, each time sent on his way as soon as he had presented his papers, all counter-sealed by King Louis’s Master of the Household in Paris. The soldiers had become remarkably polite and helpful after that, recommending the best places to rest on their route to the capital. Warwick and his men found taverns before sunset and if most of them had to sleep among the horses in the stables, or wedged under the eaves of an attic, it was not such a hardship.

On the fourth night, Warwick and Clarence had taken a table set with olives, bread and a flask of wine strong enough to make their heads swim. The owners appeared delighted to have English lords in their house, though Warwick had still sent one of his men to watch the food being prepared. He had the excuse of avoiding poison, but
the truth was his man was a skilled cook and loved to learn new flavours, asking about every spice and powder and insisting on a taste. By the time he returned to England, Warwick knew he would have a dozen new dishes of French country fare to enjoy.

They sat by a fire in an iron grate, enjoying an evening without the clank of armour as both men had come down from their rooms in simple jerkin and hose. As the first course came to an end and they wiped their fingers, Warwick raised a cup to the young man, wishing him good fortune in everything he did. He found Clarence surprisingly good company, not at all garrulous for one so young, but given to comfortable silences. Warwick’s toast prompted another and Clarence obliged, his face already bright with drink.

‘And to you, my brother’s great friend. And to my brother Edward, first man in England!’ he said.

The strong wine was affecting the younger man and he slurred the words. Warwick chuckled and sank his cup, refilling it from the flask before the tavern maid could do more than take a step in his direction. She stood back, blushing, with her hands clasped at her waist. She was not used to English appetites or manners. The first platter of two small chickens in fennel and mushrooms had been reduced to bones in no time at all, barely interrupting the two men’s conversation.

‘Edward has made a fine match, of course,’ George said suddenly. He was staring into the fire and did not see the way Warwick’s expression tightened. ‘With two daughters born, though I do not doubt there will be a boy or two to come! Elizabeth is pregnant for a third time, so I will pray it is a son and heir. Yet, I … well, I am …’

Warwick looked sharply at him and the young man
flickered a glance in his direction. Such a deep colour appeared on his cheeks that it looked as if he was choking. The young duke was clearly nervous and sweating more than the heat of the small fire might have justified.

‘I … ah … I asked to accompany you to Paris in part because I have not seen the city itself and I thought it would be a fine journey, with new sights, and perhaps I might discover a book or two to offer as a g-gift …’

Warwick looked at him in alarm. The peaceful silence of their past few days had vanished. He began to wonder if George of Clarence would have an apoplexy, so much was he shaking and spluttering.

‘Have a drink, George. Here, the joint has arrived! Allow me to slice it for you. Perhaps you will broach whatever it is that has you in such a fine froth.’

Warwick set about carving the pork haunch delivered to the table, placing slices on the wooden platters in front of them. He took his own knife and cut pieces he could spear as he talked, then refilled both cups of wine yet again. No doubt it would be a late start the following day, but the thought did not disturb him unduly. Some nights could not be better spent than in wine and good company.

George, Duke of Clarence, chewed miserably, his mouth stuffed too full even to attempt to talk. He wrestled with a strip of the finest crackling he had ever tasted, wrenching it back and forth until he thought it would never give way, then swallowing manfully. The meat seemed to settle his swimming senses enough to speak again, forcing himself to rush through the words before his heart exploded in his chest.

‘I had thought to ask you, sir, my lord, for the hand of your daughter Isabel, in marriage.’

It had been said. The young man sagged in his chair and upended his cup of wine while Warwick gaped at him, his mind working. It was a better match than he could have hoped for – especially with Woodville men and women claiming every title in the country as soon as they came free.

‘Have you mentioned your desire to my daughter?’ he asked.

George spluttered through his wine and stammered his reply.

‘I have not told her of desire, sir! I would not presume, until I had spoken to her father. Until our wedding night, my lord, sir!’

‘Take a
breath
,’ Warwick said. ‘And now another. There. I meant your desire to marry, nothing more. Have you … I don’t know, talked of love with Isabel? If so, I am a little surprised you could get more than a word past that babbling stream.’

‘I have spoken three times to her, my lord, in chaste company. Twice in London and once at your estate in Middleham, last summer.’

‘Yes, I remember,’ Warwick said, summoning some vague recollection of seeing his then sixteen-year-old daughter talking to a sweating boy. He wondered if George, Duke of Clarence, was interested in his daughter for her beauty or for the lands she would inherit. Warwick had no sons and whoever married Isabel would eventually become the richest man in England, inheriting the vast estates of Warwick and Salisbury both. Isabel might have been married already if not for the extraordinary dominance of the Woodvilles as she reached marriageable age.

Warwick frowned, looking with fresh eyes at an
eighteen-year-old duke who might become his son-in-law. It was one thing to consider George as a half-decent brother of the king, quite another to think of him as the father of Warwick’s grandchildren. He saw a deep nervousness, but also some courage as the young man met his gaze and held it, instinctively understanding the scrutiny.

‘I know you will want to think about my offer, sir. I will not mention it again, now that I have brought it to you. Only this, my lord. I do love her, on my honour. Isabel is a wonderful girl. When I have made her smile, I want to laugh or weep for the joy of it.’

Warwick held up his hand.

‘Let me digest the news, with this fine meal. I think I would like another flask of this red wine, to settle my stomach.’ He saw the young man swallow and look pale and decided not to press him. Instead, he yawned. ‘Or perhaps I will sleep and rise early. We have a long day on the road ahead – and Paris the day after. We’ll need to be sharp.’

‘Will I have your answer by then, my lord?’ George asked, his eyes desperate.

‘Yes, you will,’ Warwick replied. He had no desire to torture the young man. His instincts were all in favour, not least because his wife would not have dreamed of their daughter marrying a duke. It was no small thing that the marriage would infuriate Elizabeth Woodville as well, though that would remain a private pleasure.