Loyalty (23 page)

   “Now we just have to hope that no miracles are reported at their tombs,” he remarked, half-seriously, before instructing that the bodies be taken and laid to rest in the Nevill family vault at Bisham Abbey. 

   Late that evening the expected news from the south-west arrived. A messenger was admitted to Edward’s presence in a private chamber inside Westminster Palace.

   “The Queen landed at Weymouth two days ago, Majesty,” he said breathlessly, “I personally saw her army disembark, guarded by French warships.”

   “Damn King Louis,” said Edward, “he makes trouble for us at every turn. How many men has she got?”

   “Some three thousand, Majesty.”

   “Mercenaries and Lancastrian exiles,” said Gloucester, “have Somerset and Courtenay joined her yet?”

   The messenger shook his head. “Not yet, lord, but they are marching to meet her at Cerne Abbey. I don’t know how many men they have gathered.”

   Edward pondered for a moment. “She cannot yet know that Warwick is dead,” he said, “for the storms will have prevented any messages crossing to France. What will the old bitch do, once she learns that her greatest ally is no more?”

   “Turn around and run back to France,” said Clarence, though without much conviction.      

   “All depends on the support she receives in the south-west,” put in Gloucester, “if men there flock to her banner, she will gather quite a host. That part of England is rotten with Lancastrian sympathisers.”

   Edward thought for a moment. “She does not lack for allies,” he said. “Besides Somerset and Courtenay, there is Jasper Tudor in Wales. If she means to fight, her best course would be to march north with all speed and join forces with Tudor’s Welshmen.”

   He suppressed a groan. Wales and the South-West would soon be alive with conspiracy and rebellion. No matter what he did, no matter how many times he crushed his enemies in battle, fresh crises always arose.

   When he was young and full of dreams, the crown had seemed like a great prize. One he had coveted and fought for. In truth it was an intolerable burden. He would never know a moment’s peace for as long as he wore it.

   “Another battle looms before us, my lords,” he said, drawing himself up, “commissions of array must be sent out to every county in England. We need fresh men, to replace those killed at Barnet, and quickly.”

   “Fresh meat,” said Clarence, with the ghost of a smile. Edward pointedly ignored him. The duke was still under a cloud, and had few friends at court.

   Over the next few days riders were despatched from London, bearing commissions of array to raise troops with all haste and fetch them back to the capital.

   Meanwhile news streamed in from Edward’s network of spies and agents. None of it was good. Margaret had joined with her allies at Cerne Abbey, and from there the combined army marched to Exeter. As Edward feared, the men of Devon and Cornwall were still loyal to Lancaster, and rose in their thousands to join her.

   At the same time he learned that the Bastard of Fauconberg, a Nevill by-blow and notorious pirate, was gathering a fleet at Calais. He intended to land at Sandwich, muster the men of Kent and march on London.

   This raised a new and horrifying possibility. “If we march west to face the Queen,” said Edward when he learned of the ships assembling at Calais, “we leave the capital wide open to attack by Fauconberg.”

   “I will be caught between two fires,” he added, “just as I was before, at Coventry.”

   “And emerged unscathed,” Gloucester reminded him, “you are proof against any flames, brother. The Devil cannot touch you.” 

   Edward looked at him gratefully. Since his first taste of battle at Barnet, where he had performed with heroic valour against the Duke of Exeter’s division, Gloucester had been his bulwark. Never dismayed, contemptuous of any danger, his youngest brother was growing in confidence and ability just when Edward needed him to.

   Drawing strength from Gloucester’s conviction, he made the brave decision to quit London and hunt down his enemy in the west. The alternative was to stay put and wait for the Queen and Fauconberg to converge upon the capital, which was unacceptable. Edward’s best hope, as ever, was to march out and fight.  

   Even during those days of frantic activity, his thoughts often strayed to his rival in the Tower. The continued existence of Henry VI, now once again mere Henry of Lancaster, was becoming an absurdity. That wretched, threadbare clown, his mind completely overthrown, his body rank and stinking, still posed a grave threat to the House of York.

   Already regarded by some as a living saint, sainthood being the preserve of unwashed holy fools, Henry remained a beacon of hope for the Lancastrians. His very name was a rallying-cry for those mustering in Devon and Cornwall and Wales. They took up arms on his behalf.

   It was a problem Edward had long appreciated, but still his conscience would not permit him to apply the obvious remedy.

   Gloucester no longer tried to persuade him to do away with Henry. He had suffered enough sharp reproofs, and confined himself to meaningful looks whenever Henry’s name was mentioned in council. Edward ignored them, and gave orders for the guard at the Tower to be doubled when the army marched from London.

   “Even if the worst befalls, and Fauconberg storms the city in our absence,” he said, “he will not be able to take the Tower. It is the strongest fortress in England, and can hold out against a lengthy siege until we return.”

  
If we return
, he added silently. Edward was acutely aware that God’s grace had preserved him in all his battles. No more so than at Barnet, where only Oxford’s mistaken attack on Montagu’s division had saved the Yorkist army from near-certain defeat.

   Divine grace was not a finite or reliable resource. He felt certain it would desert him at some point. His soldiers thought otherwise, and confidently sang in the streets that where King Edward led, victory was sure to follow.

   He had no choice but to live up to their ideal. On the nineteenth of April he led his hastily mustered army out of London and marched to Windsor. The march was slow, thanks to the creaking wagons that straggled along in the rear, loaded down with the royal artillery and guns captured from the wreck of Warwick’s army at Barnet.

   At Windsor the army halted, waiting for reliable word of the Queen’s movements. Her intentions were unknown. Would she make a dash for the Welsh border, to join with Jasper Tudor and then head for the Lancastrian heartlands in the north, or swing east and advance on London?

   Thus Edward waited, and prepared his soul for one more battle.             

Chapter 23

James travelled north with Lord Bulstrode’s men as they hurried to join Montagu at Pontefract, and delivered his letter to the Marquis in person when they met with his army on the road.

   That done, he left the army and rode south-west, back towards Staffordshire. He took his prisoner with him, and two of Warwick’s archers, whom he had bribed to leave the earl’s service and accompany him. Still wary of their captain, he took care to slip away under cover of darkness, while the Lancastrian army was settling down for supper.

   A half-moon hung in the velvet night sky, and that was all the light James needed to find his way along roads he had ridden up and down many times in the previous ten years. His long service as an equerry had led to him acquiring an intimate knowledge of England’s roads and highways.

   Geoffrey was gagged for the first stage of the journey, and his wrists bound in front of him. To prevent any attempt at escape, one of the archers rode on the saddle behind him, guiding his horse. The spare fourth horse was led by his comrade.

   “One wrong move, Malvern,” James warned him before they set out, “and you die. Understand?”

   Geoffrey nodded. He was a surprisingly compliant prisoner, meek and quiet and obedient, and had been so since James discovered him playing the Fool at Crowspur Castle. James was taking no chances. He remembered how sly Geoffrey had been as a child, and suspected the boy was father to the man.

   They rode hard for two hours before James allowed a rest inside a little wood. Under the shelter of the trees they ate a hasty supper of bread and dried meat, and drank watered wine.

   “Remove his gag,” James ordered. When that was done, he passed Geoffrey the wineskin and a bit of bread.

   “Where are we going?” Geoffrey asked after he had greedily sucked down some wine and wiped his lips. His tone was as docile as ever, and James read nothing but servility in his eyes.

   “Home,” James replied curtly, “does that please you?”

   The other man paused in the act of lifting the bread to his mouth. “May I ask why?” he ventured.

   “You may.” James allowed a few seconds to pass before continuing, just long enough for Geoffrey to feel a spark of hope.

   “We are going back to Staffordshire,” he went on, folding his arms, “so you can finally make amends for your family’s treachery. Your father slew mine. By rights I should kill you. That is how the blood-feud works, does it not?”

   “And your brother slew my father,” Geoffrey shot back. There was no docility in his voice now. Even a rat, James reflected, had points of pride.

   “Yes,” he said, “and so it goes on, through the ages, until all parties have forgotten why they are killing each other. I have something else in mind.”

   He leaned forward in the saddle and tapped Geoffrey’s thigh. “We are going home, wretch, so you can put your signature on a charter I intend to draw up. The charter will declare that you, Sir Geoffrey Malvern, have decided to quitclaim all rights to Malvern Hall and its surrounding farms and lands, and do instead bequeath them to your neighbour Martin Bolton, esquire.”

   He relished the frozen look on Geoffrey’s face. This was a thousand times better than a simple hanging or beheading. Forcing the whoreson to disinherit himself was the sweetest form of revenge James could have devised.

   Then it was James’ turn for a shock. The corner of Geoffrey’s mouth twitched, and he threw his head back and burst into a peal of laughter. The noise echoed through the woods, startling an owl into dropping from her perch and flapping away into the night.

   The archer seated behind Geoffrey clapped a mouth over his mouth.

   “Have you taken leave of your wits, Malvern?” demanded James.

   Geoffrey was still grunting with stifled laughter. “You have been away from home too long, Bolton,” he gasped when the archer let him speak, “my niece Kate stands to inherit the hall, and I recently married her to Edmund Ramage. You will remember him, of course.”

   “I do,” James growled, “he is another of those who conspired to murder my father. You wed your little niece to that old miser? For shame.”

   “Oh, that is not all,” replied Geoffrey, now wearing a smile of pure malicious delight, “I learned something before they were married. Something I had to take steps to deal with. Kate and your little brother Martin were lovers. They had been having secret trysts in the woods for months.”

   His broken teeth glinted in the moonlight. “She insisted that Martin had not broken her maidenhead. I was not inclined to believe her, for who ever heard of one of your filthy kin behaving like a gentleman?But then Edmund made no complaint after the wedding night, so I assumed a miracle had occurred and your brother had kept his cock in his codpiece.”

   James was briefly lost for words. He had intended to ambush Geoffrey, but the bloody man had launched a counter-attack.

   He cursed Martin, whom he had mistakenly judged to be a bluff, honest character, and perhaps not over-burdened with brains. Just like their father. Instead he had turned out to be every bit as capable of subterfuge as James.

   “I knew nothing of any affair between my brother and your niece,” he said truthfully, “but it hardly matters now if she is wed. Perhaps you are not aware that Martin recently returned to Staffordshire, with forty armed men at his back and bearing a commission of array from the Earl of Warwick. I wonder how he will react when he discovers that Kate is married to Edmund Ramage?”

   Irritatingly, this did not have the effect he hoped for. “Well, then,” said Geoffrey with a shrug, “let Martin and Ramage die on each other’s swords. I can always find another suitable husband for Kate. You can make me sign as many bits of parchment as you like. The king will declare any such charter null and void. He made me a viscount, and I stand high in his favour.”

   “Your king may not last much longer,” said James, “any day now, his army will meet Warwick’s in battle.”

   Geoffrey snorted. “I may be no soldier, but I can judge soldiering in others. King Edward of York is the finest warrior and leader of men this island has produced since the days of Harry the Fifth. If the Earl of Warwick is foolish enough to confront him in the field, your cause is doomed.”

   “Then perhaps I shall kill you here and now,” said James. He was resorting to crude tactics, anything to punch a hole in Geoffrey’s insufferable complacency. 

   “No. Not you. You can’t kill in cold blood. I have faced such killers before. Lord Bulstrode is one, your brother Richard was another. But you, James, are a man of God. You are not permitted to hurt me, and have nothing to hurt me with.”