Loyalty (14 page)

   Not any more. Henry was safely locked away in a chamber in a remote corner of the keep, where he could argue with invisible demons and pray to his heart’s content. His only function now was to appear in public (very occasionally) and smile and wave to the people. If sufficiently well-rehearsed beforehand, Warwick could trust him to do that much.

   “I want you to go to East Anglia,” said Warwick, not wishing to dwell on Tiptoft’s execution, “and organise the defences there with Lord Scrope. Edward may well attempt a landing on the east coast.”

   Oxford’s chair creaked as he leaned back. He had already devoured most of his breakfast, and his eyes were mazed with drink.

   “Fine,” he said thickly, “we will meet the bastard wherever he tries to land. Him and his rabble of frog-eaters. Let them come, and soon.” 

   He grabbed a loaf of bread and started to tear it in pieces. “You wish to discuss strategy, my lord,” he said, breathing wine fumes across the table, “so let’s do so.”

   “Here is Pembroke,” – he stuck his finger into a puddle of cider on the table - “whipping up his kinsmen in Wales on our behalf.”

   “And here,” he went on, arranging the bits of bread into a pattern, “is our fleet patrolling the Channel, under the command of your kinsman, the Bastard of Fauconberg. The man is naught but a bloody pirate, but he preys on Yorkist as well as merchant shipping, so we’ll let that pass.”

   He paused to belch, which gave Warwick the opportunity to intervene.

   “The North is secure,” he said, “my brother Montagu holds Pontefract Castle, and from there keeps an eye on the Earl of Northumberland. So our defences are secure at all points except the east, which is why I want you there. I don’t trust Lord Scrope. He has a propensity to turn his coat.”

   Oxford spluttered with laughter, and had to pause a moment while he fought for breath.

   “Trust?” he gasped, banging his chest, “what trust is there in England? I trust no man living, save maybe Pembroke. I make bargains with my enemies, and peel back my lips into a whore’s smile so I may consort with traitors. I place my soul in jeopardy. All, I console myself, for my king. My dear, afflicted, helpless king.”

   Warwick looked at him nervously. Excess of wine had made Oxford maudlin. The next stage was anger, and Warwick didn’t relish the thought of being alone with this powerful, unstable man in a rage.

   “You dare,” said Oxford, stabbing a wavering forefinger at Warwick, “to talk of men turning their coats. How many coats have you worn, my lord Warwick? A great many, but they were mere coverings. Underneath, you wear the bear and ragged staff, and no other.”

   This was frank talk of a kind Warwick preferred to avoid. “You are drunk, sir,” he said, snatching away the wine jug, “learn to guard your tongue, else it utters something you cannot repent from.”

   Oxford coloured even further, so Warwick decided to go on the offensive. “Self-interested I may be,” he said, holding the other man’s gaze, “but I am the House of Lancaster’s last and only hope. Without me, your cause would slide back into the hole I plucked it from.”

   An uneasy silence fell as both men stared at each other with loathing. Both were unarmed save for eating-knives, but any decent blade could kill.

   Warwick had never seen Oxford fight, and wondered how fast he was. The earl’s thick neck, slanted shoulders and muscular arms hinted at formidable strength, but he carried too much fat, and was drunk into the bargain. 

   On the whole, Warwick preferred not to risk it. Best to call for the guard and have Oxford dragged away to cool his overheated blood in the dungeons. Warwick had already incarcerated the Duke of Norfolk and the Archbishop of Canterbury, both of them Yorkist sympathisers. Oxford could spend some time in their august company.

   The words were already in his throat when the door slid open and the chamberlain entered.

   “Pardon the interruption, lords,” he said nervously, his eyes widening as they took in the scene, “but a messenger has arrived with news from France. He gives his name as James Bolton, and says he is known to you, my lord Warwick.”

   “So he is,” Warwick replied out of the side of his mouth, without taking his eyes off Oxford, “show him in. I will receive him in my private study.”

   The chamberlain bowed and hastened out. Warwick slowly rose from his chair, spreading his hands to show he meant no harm.

   “Business,” he said, mustering a smile, “we must keep ourselves occupied. That is the safest way to guard against our enemies, and prevent any unfortunate misunderstandings.”

   The dangerous look in Oxford’s red-rimmed eyes had ebbed. He suddenly looked tired, and reached for a cloth to mop his greasy face.

   “I’m for East Anglia, then,” he said, as if the previous tension had not existed, “God grant that Edward of March chooses to make landfall on the east coast. I will slay him with my bare hands.”  

   Warwick glanced at the earl’s hands. His fingers were like sausages, and it was easy to imagine them twisting a man’s neck until it cracked.

   “Yes,” said Warwick, suppressing a shudder, “let him come, and soon.”

Chapter 14

East Anglia, 14
th
March 1471

In his dreams Edward had fondly pictured himself returning to England in glory at the head of a mighty host, and sweeping all before him as he landed at Sandwich and marched in triumph on London. The gates of the capital were wide open to receive him, as were the legs of the legion of mistresses, high-born and low, he had regretfully left behind him when he fled into exile.

   Foolish dreams, he reflected, and they seemed even more so in the stark light of day.

   His modest fleet of thirty-six ships bobbed off the coast of Cromer in East Anglia. The flat grey landscape combined with grey skies and grey seas to depress the spirits of everyone aboard Edward’s flagship,
Anthony
.

   Edward had been around soldiers from a young age, and could sense when their spirits were low. His lords and Burgundian mercenaries did their best to hide it in his presence, talking with forced jocularity of the campaign ahead, but he could see the truth in their eyes. None of them rated their chances worth a damn, and no wonder.

   He felt different. Always at his best in a crisis, the weeks of horse-trading with the Duke of Burgundy in the Low Countries had irritated him immensely, not least because he was obliged to debase and place himself in debt to the duke and foreign merchants. Only his natural courtesy, and the knowledge that he had no other resource, had prevented him from wiping the avaricious smiles from their well-fed faces with his fists.

   At last he had negotiated a deal, and been able to sail from the port at Flushing with his thirty-six ships and fifteen hundred Burgundian mercenaries. The mercenaries were a coarse, ragbag set, as such sell-swords tended to be, but knew their trade.

   “How long are they going to be?” he muttered to himself, drumming his fingers impatiently on the side of the foredeck, “God help us if they have been spotted.”

   “Chamberlain and Bedingham are reliable men, and they know the lie of the land,” his brother Gloucester said confidently, “they will stab themselves rather than be taken prisoner.”

   Gloucester referred to Sir Robert Chamberlain and Sir Gilbert Bedingham, two of Edward’s most trusted knights, whom he had sent ashore to scout out the land. They had been gone for over three hours. Every passing minute added a keener edge to Edward’s anxiety.

   “They are under no orders from me to take their own lives,” he said. “We have no right to ask our followers to imperil their souls.”

   Gloucester’s heavy jaw tightened. “When a man swears loyalty to another,” he said, “that loyalty is absolute. If they are taken captive, the Lancastrians will torture them to reveal our whereabouts. I instructed them to kill themselves rather than let that happen.”

   Edward forgot the shoreline for a moment and looked at Gloucester in disbelief. “You gave orders to them without my knowledge?”

   Gloucester gazed up at his towering brother with absolute serenity in his dark brown eyes. “We are fighting a war of survival,” he said calmly, “in which the weaker party shall go under. We cannot afford to make a single mistake.”

   Not for the first time, Edward wondered at Gloucester’s sanity. There was something brittle under the steely, warrior image he liked to project, mixed with a capacity for self-delusion. Ordering two knights to stab themselves rather than be taken was ridiculous, especially a pair of practical, hard-headed men like Chamberlain and Bedingham. As if they would even think of complying.

   Edward took a deep breath and suppressed the desire to bawl at his brother. Gloucester would only respond in kind, and a quarrel between the royal siblings would look bad in front of the men.

   “You’re right,” he said, “this is a war of survival, and I need to know that I can rely on every nobleman under my command. Are you to be relied on, Richard?”

   Gloucester stiffened. “Until death, brother,” he replied sharply. Every inch of his diminutive frame quivered, like a terrier waiting to be thrown a bone.

   Edward eyeballed him for a moment.
His loyalty is not to be questioned
, he thought,
but his judgment is lacking.At some point I will put him to the test.

   “Then we will speak no more of this,” he said, turning back to his vigil of the shore.

   Shortly afterwards he glimpsed his scouts, both apparently unharmed and urging their horses down the shingle beach towards the longboats that had ferried them ashore.

   “We must not attempt a landing here, Majesty,” panted Bedingham after he had clambered up the rope-ladder onto deck, “the countryside is swarming with troops wearing the livery of Scrope and Oxford.”

   “We found one knight who remains loyal to York,” added his companion, “he told us that the Duke of Norfolk has been imprisoned in the Tower, along with the friends of Earl Rivers.”

   Edward bit back a curse. He had to remain outwardly cheerful, no matter what storms raged inside him. “So my old friend Warwick has purged East Anglia of Yorkists,” he said lightly, “it is like him to be so thorough. Well, we must sail on then.”

   His little group of loyal nobles looked to him for guidance. Hastings and Rivers looked stricken, and even Gloucester’s face had drained of colour.

   Edward knew the unspoken questions that loomed large in all their minds. What if the whole of England was like this, and there was nowhere that would receive them? What if the House of York had been utterly rejected by the people?

   He couldn’t allow himself to believe that. Warwick had been in charge of England for just over six months. Even he could not have bought the loyalty of the English in so short a time.

   Edward quashed his private doubts. Much more of that, and he might as well order his fleet to turn around and return to Holland.

   “North,” he announced, “we will sail up to the coast of Yorkshire.”

   An inspiration struck him. “To Ravenspur,” he added, “where Henry Bolingbroke landed to unseat Richard II. It seems fitting.”

   That drew a few smiles. Bolingbroke had been the first Lancastrian king, so there was a certain irony in a Yorkist following in his footsteps.

   Edward had another, more practical reason for landing at Ravenspur. The region was part of the estates of Henry Percy, whom Edward had recently reinstated as Earl of Northumberland, reversing the attainder on the Percy lands and titles. Percy’s loyalties were uncertain, but Edward gambled on him allowing the little Yorkist army to land unopposed.

   With renewed confidence, Edward gave orders for the fleet to sail north. God was still on his side, he assured himself, and he was still the peerless knight-errant who had won a kingdom in battle, and would do so again.

   He should have remembered that God is fickle. The following day a storm swept inland over the North Sea, so fast the crew barely had time to furl sails and batten everything down before it hit, a screaming gale accompanied by monstrous black clouds and torrential rain.

   Edward clung to a bulkhead, soaked to the skin and unable to see more than a few feet through the curtains of rain and the angry waves that slapped and tore at the ship. He had rarely, if ever, felt helpless, but for now all he could do was pray and trust to the skill of the French sailors.

   The
Anthony
was hurled about like a child’s toy by the storm-whipped seas, too violently for Edward’s stomach to cope. His breakfast ended up swilling about the deck, much to the mute fury of the crew. They would have bawled out anyone else careless enough to vomit on deck rather than overboard, but no man could raise his voice, much less a hand, against a king.   

   “I’m sorry,” he gasped, though no-one could hear him above the shrieking wind and the groan of the ship’s timbers, “you will be paid double for your labours when I am king again.”

  
When I am king again.
Thank God none had heard him say that. It implied self-doubt. Edward had never stopped being king, even though traitors had chased him out of his own land.