Wars of the Roses: Bloodline: Book 3 (The Wars of the Roses) (27 page)

George of Clarence stared, the wind at that height flicking his hair across his forehead and wide eyes.

‘You would allow me to marry Isabel? In France?’

‘My lord Clarence, it will be done before sunset today if you gather your wits in time! I have made it all ready for you. The question is only whether you want the marriage and are willing to risk your brother’s wrath.’

‘To marry Isabel? A thousand times over!’ the young man replied, gripping his future father-in-law by the arm, hard enough to make Warwick wince. ‘
Yes
, my lord. I thank you. Thank you! Yes, I will come to France and, yes, I will marry your daughter and protect her and give her my honour as her shield.’

The young man stared out across the boats on the Thames in a sort of dazed wonder. His eyes darkened suddenly and he looked back.

‘What of you, though, sir? My brother will forgive me, of a certainty. He will, of course, forgive my wife. Did he not marry for love himself? Edward will rage and break pots, but he will not hold me to account, I think. For you, though, his anger will be …’ He trailed away, aware that he did not want to dissuade Warwick from going ahead.

‘I am his foremost earl and a member of his council,’ Warwick said gently. ‘He named me companion after Towton and my family has supported both Edward
and
your father from the very beginning. He may rage, George – yes, I am sure he will – but he and I are friends and the storms will blow out.’

Warwick spoke easily, though he no longer believed any of it. Whether by the poison Elizabeth Woodville dripped into Edward’s ear or the king’s own sense of betrayal and childish temper, Warwick had a very clear sense of the breach that would follow. He had spent a number of dark nights planning for it.

George of Clarence heard what he wanted to hear, that the wedding could go ahead and it would all be to the good with the passage of time. He embraced Warwick, surprising the earl, before making his way down the steps at such a speed Warwick thought he would surely fall and break his neck.

Warwick could not keep up with the duke as he galloped through the halls. The older man reached the outer doors of Baynard’s Castle just in time to see George of Clarence leap up on to the side of the open carriage. The duke gathered a weeping Isabel Neville into his arms, scandalizing the coachmen, two guards and a gaggle of passers-by. Warwick found himself flushing in embarrassment and he cleared his throat noisily as he drew close, sending the pair springing apart with matching expressions of guilty passion.

Richard, Earl Warwick, climbed up and sat deliberately between the two of them, staring woodenly ahead as the duke and his daughter tried to look round him.

‘Away, coachman!’ Warwick called, pulling up furs over their knees.

The man snapped a whip across the pair of black horses and they broke into a trot through the muddy streets. Warwick could see people stopping to point at the strange sight, but the news could not travel as fast as they could. By the time anyone understood what they were about, the marriage would have been made and he would have the king’s brother for his son-in-law.

They passed rapidly across London Bridge, where the head of Jack Cade had been taken down years before. Warwick shuddered at the row of iron spikes there, remembering darker days and the fate of his own father. It was possible
for a man to reach too far. God knew, it was hard to dispute that. Warwick clenched his fist unseen on his lap. He had suffered enough without response. Saints would not have had the patience he had shown, but that had come to an end. The die was cast, the plan begun. Neither King Edward nor Elizabeth Woodville would stop him, not then. He reached out and touched the wooden side of the carriage for luck as they turned on to the ancient road to the south coast, some sixty miles away. As they travelled on, the sun was still rising over the capital.

The weather had held, with no rain and a mild sun, so that it had given the royal party almost perfect hunting skies. As importantly, King Edward’s falcon had made the Woodville goshawk look slow. Sir John Woodville flew his brother’s bird well enough, but the fault was in nature not his skill. The goshawk screeched in rage when it could not pursue, an emotion as clear as any the men felt themselves. In turn, the king’s falcon appeared to take pleasure in showing its mastery, pulling tight turns and dives right across the face of the Woodville knight, so that the hawk went stumbling in the disturbed air of its wake.

There was prey for them both, flushed by the dogs from cover, so that hares went racing or grouse flapped madly into the air, with squires yelling and pointing out their course. The archers competed among themselves to take birds on the wing or, at one point, even trout from a river, with silver wagered by those who said it could not be done. Between them, the entire group took enough to feed themselves each night, with servants building spits and firepits. Those who missed their shots went hungry for days at a time, until their friends took pity on them. It helped that they had brought horses laden only with flasks and amphorae of wine. In the evenings, the drink flowed and the men jostled and competed to amuse the young king.

Edward was content. He would have preferred more
challenging prey, but there would be no sign of wolves or deer so near to the road. The animals were too used to the sounds of men and knew when to run and keep running. With great fondness, he recalled his hunts in the deep woods or the wilds of Wales, where the animals were not so used to the scent of man.

It had not been a rush north, to bring king’s justice on rioting weavers. Edward and his knights had enjoyed the hospitality and feasts arranged for them in too many manor houses and market towns. There had been days when they’d been so taken by groaning, drunken illness that they had barely made five miles. Earl Rivers had suffered a terrible bout of loose bowels for two entire days, until Edward thought they would have to leave him behind, or perhaps get him a new horse.

The young king laughed at the memory of the old man’s mortified expressions. His father-in-law was riding a little way over and looked up in suspicion, not quite seeing the humour that had reduced some of the knights to tears.

Ahead lay the city of York and, at the sight of those walls and the thread of the River Ouse, Edward lost his desire to smile. There were too many savage memories bound up in the stones of that place ever to call it home. The worst of it was the damned Micklegate Bar, open to the south. He thought he might have those towers and walls there taken down, or rebuilt so as not to overwhelm him every time he saw them.

Edward was staring ahead when he saw a darkening line appear on the horizon around the city. He squinted and leaned forward, shading his eyes. He had no scouts out and, for an instant, he felt his stomach clench, before his natural belligerence reasserted itself. He would not fear rioters.

‘Sir John!’ he called back. ‘Ride ahead and scout for me. Who are those men there?’

His wife’s young brother dug in spurs and his horse bunched and lunged into a gallop, a fine display from a man whose hawk was too slow. Edward watched him go and, for the first time, cast an eye over his men as an armed force rather than a huge hunting party. What he saw did not please him, as one who had known the disciplined ranks of Towton. The knights and men-at-arms who had accompanied the king into the north were a little ragged for the experience. His archers still looked keen though.

‘Thank God for that,’ he murmured. With a whistle, he summoned a captain to his side and gave a string of orders, bringing something resembling structure to the disparate group.

Sir John Woodville rode back some time later and looked with interest over the steady ranks of knights and wings of archers that had formed around the king at the centre. For all his faults, Edward Plantagenet would have made a fine captain; there had never been any doubt about that.

Sir John began to dismount and Edward held up his hand, irritation showing.

‘Stay in the saddle, lad. What could you see?’

The dark line around the city was clearly made of distant figures by then. They did not look like any rioters Edward had seen before, nor labourers, weavers or not.

‘Two thousand, maybe three, Your Highness. I saw perhaps a hundred ahorse, eight hundred archers. The rest are marching here, now that they have seen us.’

‘Banners? Who commands them?’

‘I saw none, though they formed like soldiers. It could be Lancaster rebels.’

‘Which? There are none left.’ Edward had a terrible thought then, that the Percy earl he had restored might have turned against him. The thought sickened him, not least because of how Warwick would look when he heard.

‘Whoever leads them, we are sorely outmatched, my lord,’ Earl Rivers said, riding up to Edward’s side.

The Woodville father exchanged a worried glance with his youngest son, seeing the tension in him. They could both see the young giant tapping the hilt of his sword as he stared away to the horizon. If any man in England could turn the trap into a victory it was Edward, but Earl Rivers knew their lives – his son’s life – hung in that decision.

‘I believe your father sallied out against Lancaster forces, Your Highness,’ Earl Rivers murmured. ‘You have armies who would fight for you.’

‘I have two
hundred
archers here, now,’ Edward replied. ‘I have seen what they can do. For all we know, these others are false bowmen meant to make us run. Men with axe-handles and twine, my lord. My two hundred could tear them apart for their insolence and trickery.’

‘Yes, Your Highness. Or this is a plot to kill you and put Lancaster back on the throne of England. You won at Towton, my lord, but you had your army with you.
Please
.’

Edward looked askance at his wife’s father, then back to those he had brought into the north. They were as fine a hunting party as he had ever known, but no kind of army. They looked afraid as the lines widened ahead of them.

‘Very well, Rivers. Though it breaks my heart, I will choose good sense and caution over rash action and giving
the bastards blow for blow. Away south, gentlemen! With me, at your best pace now.’

It did not escape Edward that they were a long, long way from the forces he needed to answer the threat, or that the hunters had become the hunted. He heard horns sound behind him and the king shivered, feeling the cold.

Spring had come to France, with the fields a deep, vivid green as far as the eye could see. Warwick’s papers had been old permissions to land, with the dates sanded away and new ones inked. The harbourmaster who had been rowed out to them and then the captain of the fortress had barely glanced at the vellum and the seals. Both men remembered Warwick and Clarence from their previous visit and were visibly embarrassed in the presence of a beautiful young woman, radiant with happiness.

Warwick had brought only his coachman and two guards with him, preferring speed to a real display of force. The small group had borrowed horses from a mystified king’s captain, promising to return them the following morning. The English officers all suspected some romantic scene was being played out before them, but they kept their questions to themselves.

The small group had not ridden far from Calais, just a few miles down the road to the village of Ardres. There, Warwick greeted a white-haired country priest and explained what he required in fluent French. The priest beamed at them all, seemingly delighted at their mere presence in his humble church, though Warwick also passed over a pouch of silver coins.

For his part, George of Clarence could only stand in wide-eyed joy and clasp Isabel’s hand, hardly believing that
what they had desired for so long was happening right then and there. Warwick’s men had smoothed their hair down and brushed their jackets with water from the well. They would be the witnesses and they bristled with pride.

Warwick held up his hand when he heard the approach of horses outside. His daughter looked at him in alarm, but he winked at her. No one had followed them from the coast, he was certain. There was only one other who might have come at his private request.

‘Isabel, George. If you would wait for just a little time …’ he said over his shoulder to them, walking along the nave to the wooden doors.

They opened before he reached them and two guards in armour entered, with swords held ready. Behind them came King Louis of France, bare-headed and in simpler clothes than Warwick had ever seen him wear.

‘Your Majesty, you do me a great honour,’ Warwick said.

Louis smiled, looking around him at the stupefied priest and the young lovers waiting to be joined in marriage.

‘Ah! I am not too late, it seems. Such a place to find, this little Ardres. Carry on, carry on. I told milord Warwick I would attend if I could. Why not? A marriage in France is perhaps the best of all, no?’

The king accepted the bow of Warwick’s men and the priest himself, who wiped his forehead and seemed to have forgotten the service he had planned.

As the sun set outside, the priest rolled through the Latin vows, with Warwick repeating them in both English and French for Isabel and George of Clarence to say to one another. The little church was silent and dusty, but the day had been warm and spring was a time for love and new lives. There was a sense of happiness in that place, felt
even by King Louis and his personal guards, so that they beamed and twinkled at the bride and groom as they turned with their hands clasped tightly together. Warwick led the cheers and they echoed well enough in that empty church as the small group clustered in to congratulate and kiss cheeks.

‘Milord Clarence, I have a wedding gift for you,’ King Louis announced, his chest swelling. ‘The armour I promised, from Master Auguste of Paris. He said he has never made a finer set and it is measured to you with room to grow across the shoulder and chest, so you will never need another.’

George of Clarence was overwhelmed, by Isabel, the ceremony, the presence of the French king in that strange setting. He laughed as the priest handed him a square of rough cloth to wipe the perspiration from his brow, then followed them out.

Warwick fell in beside King Louis a few paces behind the married couple, exchanging the smiles of more worldly men.

‘Your daughter is exquisite,’ King Louis said. ‘I assume her mother is an extraordinary creature.’

Warwick smiled.

‘There is no other explanation, Your Majesty. Thank you for coming to this. It is such a small thing to witness, but they will remember you were here for the rest of their lives.’

‘We are friends, are we not?’ King Louis said. ‘You and I understand, I think. Peace does not matter – man will always fight and shed blood. My lords rebel and chafe under my laws. Even honour comes to an end. But love? Ah, Richard. Without love, what is the point of anything?’

‘I could not have put it better, Your Majesty,’ Warwick
replied, bowing. ‘You have given me great honour here today. I will not forget.’

‘I should think not, milord!’ Louis said with a smile. He swept forward, ducking under the low lintel.

Outside, Isabel was standing in blushing embarrassment, glowing. George of Clarence was exclaiming at the sword he had drawn, a blade marked with finely carved figures. The rest of King Louis’s gift lay in saddlebags on two mules.

‘It is almost dark now. Will you race back to your fortress of Calais, milord?’ King Louis said. ‘Scurry scurry, like little mice?’

The French king’s eyes had crinkled in joy at the sight of Isabel once again, her long dark hair bound in a silver clasp and falling to her waist.

Warwick glanced at the king, wondering, not for the first time, how much the man truly understood. It was not something he would say aloud, but it was important that the young couple consummate their marriage. He would spend a night in a tavern near the Calais fortress, giving them a room to themselves. After that, no man or indeed king could annul the union.

‘It is just a few miles, Your Majesty, though it has been a long,
long
day. Perhaps we will spend the night in comfort. To think, this morning I was in London! The speed of the world is extraordinary.’

‘Then I will bid you adieu, milord – and good luck. We will meet again as friends, I do not doubt.’

King Louis waited courteously for the little group to mount and arrange themselves, remaining in the churchyard until they had vanished into the night, safe back on the road. He did not know yet whether they would prosper
or fail, but he had laid down good, solid stones, unseen but present nonetheless. The king sighed to himself. She had been very beautiful, so much in love that she only had eyes for the young duke at her side.

‘Oh, to be young!’ he said to himself. ‘When life was so
simple
.’

‘Your Majesty?’ one of his men said cautiously, well used to the king’s murmurings.

‘It is nothing, Alain. Lead me to shelter. Lead me to warmth and good red wine.’

Edward pushed on, though the moon was a slender reed and the stones of the road were hard to see. He could hear the army coming behind him, closer with every mile and every jingling step. There was still no sign of banners, even if there had been enough light to make them out. Edward grimaced, preferring to remain silent rather than speculate. It did not matter who they were, only that they had dared to attack his royal party and that they were so many he was in real danger of being taken. His knights simply could not ride a hundred miles without stopping. It was impossible, for both the men and the horses. They had already ridden a full day by the time they’d first caught sight of the city of York, and Edward had intended to rest within its walls. Instead, he had been forced to turn and ride away, the horses already blowing, the men weary. Behind them came fresh ranks, marching and riding, pressing as fast as they could go to close the gap, stretching a mile across the road in greater numbers than he could believe. No weavers these! This was an armed insurrection against royal authority, his enemies in the field.