Margaret watched her only son step aboard, striding up the ramp and taking his place at the railing to look back in pride at the city that had taken them in. She felt the same emotion when she looked upon him, the only good thing to have come from her youth and all her first hopes of England. God, she remembered the spray in the Channel still, with William de la Pole, Duke Suffolk, at her side. She touched a silk cloth to her eyes then, rather than let tears ruin the kohl.
The River Seine was clear in spring. There were children swimming or fishing some way off along the bank, hooting and waving in excitement at seeing such a bustle, good as a play laid on for their entertainment. Prince Edward raised a hand to them, in greeting or farewell, she did not know. Margaret could still hardly believe this part of her life was coming to an end. She found herself trying to fix the scene in her mind: the colours, the great banks of flowers; understanding suddenly that she might not see Paris again for years, if at all.
She had guarded her son from all the perils of the world, waiting for the moment when the tide of York ebbed away
and he could cross the Channel on the flood. Only a mother could know the exquisite torture of that spring day on the river, with all of France around – and her son reaching for the crown he should always have had. She pressed a hand to her mouth for comfort. There were so many enemies who would deny it, who would take his life without hesitation. Yet her Edward was the only son of the oldest line of kings. No one else alive had such a claim on the throne, by blood, by law – and by right of arms if need be.
Richard
Neville
, Earl of Warwick. That was a name she had said aloud in rage and pain a thousand times through the years of her exile. In a sort of madness, she had pinned her hopes on that very man, whose father’s head she had taken and spiked on a gatehouse wall. Margaret had lived so long with strain and worry that she knew her beauty had vanished along with her waist, with her youth. It was impossible to live each day as a glass thrown into the air, never knowing when she would be broken into a thousand pieces. It had made her sharper and colder over the years, with disaster always fluttering at the edges of her vision.
‘Your Highness, would you do me the honour of allowing me to take your hand?’ said a voice at her shoulder. Margaret turned slowly, as if waking. King Louis had come down, to give her the titles and the honours she had long been denied. He smiled to see her dazed pleasure at his appearance, inclining his head a fraction. He held out his hand and Margaret placed her palm sweetly in his.
‘I believe your friend Lord Somerset will be there in Weymouth to welcome you, my lady. He has communicated as much to me. I pass you into his safe hands, to your husband’s realm and your home, after so long. I know you will consider me a friend still, in the years ahead. I will watch to see how you thrive amongst all those cold English farmers. Show
them a little colour, Margaret, would you? They live in constant gloom without our example.’
‘I will try, Your Majesty. And I am grateful for everything you have done. If there is a way to repay even some small part, I will make it my life’s work, whatever years remain to me.’
Louis chuckled as he guided her up to the scrubbed oak planking of the deck and looked around with no small satisfaction.
‘Many good years, Margaret, when all this will be just memories. I wish you good summers, my lady of England. And Prince Edward? I wish you good hunting. May you strike true.’
The prince was much taller than the Frenchman, showing the height that marked many in his line. Though he wore armour, he moved as if it had no weight at all. He bowed to King Louis, delighted.
‘I
will
, Your Majesty, in the name of Our Lord, Jesus Christ.’
‘Amen,’ Margaret and the king said together.
‘I am told the sea is a little rough today,’ King Louis went on, ‘but I do not doubt the waves will grow quiet, in awe perhaps, as you reach them.’ Margaret smiled as he had hoped she would. She was dressed in fine silk and wore only a little paint on her lips and cheeks. For all the lines that marked her face, for all the pain she had seen, Louis could not remember when she had looked more beautiful.
‘You will be in London in five or six days, Margaret. God willing, milord Warwick will have struck already – and taken the head of the one who threatens us all.’
‘I pray for it, Your Majesty. And I have your birds on board. I will release them as soon as I know.’
Louis embraced her for the last time and took her son by
the hand in a strong grip so that the younger man would not crush his fingers in careless strength. After that, the French king bounced down the ramp and watched it taken up and the ship untied. He stood on the bank with just a few guards to protect him from the gaze and pawing hands of his people, while the little ship was towed into the main channel by two boats. As the ropes between them grew taut, they threw off drops of sparkling river water. Louis was well aware of his nickname of the ‘Universal Spider’. He thought of the strands as part of a web and smiled at the sight and the conceit. It was an ending – and perhaps also a beginning. Newly embroidered banners of Lancaster would be unfurled at sea. For the moment, in Paris, the ship wore the fleurs-de-lis of France alone, in gold and blue.
The captain of the gate sent another boy racing off for orders from Mayor John Stockton. There was no bustle in the streets around them, that was certain. As far as Captain Seward could tell, the entire city of London was holding its breath, just about. He knew its moods, as one who’d grown up the son of a pepper merchant in Wych Street. Half of his men had come from the rookeries, but Captain Seward was a wealthy man. He showed no sign of that in the worn and faded leather and iron he wore. He had found a post that pleased him, on the Moorgate of the London wall. It did not matter that he went home to fine tables and servants, or he did not think it did. He treated his men like a father with his sons and in fact, two of them were his own lads.
Seward had sent the first runner when he’d been summoned to the wall by a report of ranks marching towards the city. The London gates were not for ornament. Closed and barred, they would protect those within from any hostile force. London could not even be besieged, not with the great river running to the south.
Locked outside, any enemy could negotiate with lords and the mayor, but that was not Seward’s worry. His only concern was the gate, his world and his charge.
He had been present when the order had come to close it against the house of Lancaster years before. Seward had looked down then on a great ragged army, stretching for miles – but the gate had remained shut. He had disagreed with the old mayor over that, but followed his orders even
so. He had done his duty, which was all a man could say in the end, or so he told his sons.
Captain Seward had gone grey since then, and had a great bare patch on his scalp that showed with no hair at all, like a bit of leather. His father had left him only the fine house on Wych Street, not any kind of income to go with it. Seward had fed and clothed his family for all that time by being master of the gate and keeping a close eye on the road running through it.
He could make out individual banners by then, though he turned away a dozen times to see if his youngest boy was on his way back. It took time to close the gate. Oxen had to be brought forward and made to heave against the great beams. Seward had them ready on the street below, with six of his best men, steady fellows who would not panic even if they saw soldiers walking right up to them as they reduced the bar of light to a crack and then nothing.
The merchants would howl in protest, of course. They always did, especially when Seward carried out his drill each quarter-day. Just four days a year for his men to practise closing a London gate and every single time the merchants reacted as if he’d lifted their purses or slapped their wives. Seward smiled a touch when he considered their reaction that day. Perhaps they wouldn’t complain quite so loudly when they saw his gate preventing violent men from just wandering in.
It was with relief that he saw his lad at last, racing along the street below. The gate tower where Seward stood was raised some forty feet above the road, already busy with passers-by, come to gawk as news spread. He had no time for those. Seward watched as his son reached the steps up to the wall and climbed them without slowing down. The kid had a crust of snot between his nose and upper lip that never
seemed to wear away, though he licked it all the time. Captain Seward nodded to him in pride as he scrambled up the last step, turning yet again to look out beyond the city wall. The marching ranks were no more than six hundred yards off by then, perhaps less. They’d cut it very fine.
‘Well, Luke? Out with it! What’s the word?’ Seward demanded. The little bleeder was panting like a bellows and Seward began to lose his legendary calm. He reached down and grabbed his son, lifting him into the air.
‘Luke! Closed or open?’
‘The mayor’s gone home, Dad, Captain Seward!’ the boy panted. ‘Gone to ’is bed and he won’t come out.’
Seward put his son down. Mayor Stockton had never been one for quick decisions, Seward had always known that. It was no surprise that the man had run away from this one. Well, Seward had fought for Lancaster at Towton and he
was
a man used to quick decisions. He knew King Henry had been paraded in front of his people the day before, like a calf at auction. Seward had no idea where the king was then, but captains of the gate gave their first duty to the sitting monarch, to protect him from any and all enemies.
Seward leaned over the wall to give his order to the teams below. It would mean closing the gate in the face of those approaching, but there was still time if they moved sharp.
He felt an arm reach around him and tighten on his throat, pulling him back. He heard his son shout in surprise and fear. As Seward struggled and tried to roar, he saw his men below being surrounded by dozens of the gawkers and traders, all suddenly pulling knives.
‘You’ll be leaving that gate open,’ a voice breathed in his ear, thick with garlic and violence. ‘York is come home.’
Captain Seward was a brave man. He struggled for an instant before he felt a hard shove against his back. He yelled
then as he went plunging forward, clawing at air as he fell forty feet to the cobbled road.
Edward and Richard of York came in together, both hard-faced with tension as they rode under the gatehouse and entered the city of London. In those first moments, they passed oxen teams and city soldiers standing with their heads bowed. Crossbows and longbows had been taken away from them and those who had ridden on ahead nodded or bowed to the sons of York. They had made the way safe and kept the gate open.
There were a few bodies sprawled around, proof of the brief violence that had occurred. Edward set his jaw as he rode past them. He had not asked for Warwick’s French rebellion to land and drive him out of the country. He had not asked for traitors and betrayals to dog his reign. Yet he had returned and scorched through the north to reach London. His forces were too few and yet he had the capital city in his hand.
In the yard beyond the gate, Edward and Richard gestured for Clarence to rein in with them. The three York horsemen moved their mounts off to one side, to where the body of a gate captain lay broken on the ground. There were four or five of his mates standing with a weeping boy, their heads bare and their hats twisted to ropes in their hands. Richard sent one of his scouts to ask what they wanted and then gestured his acceptance. They took the body of Captain Seward away, while the army of York came in.
‘Ten thousand men,’ Richard murmured. ‘It does not sound so many, until they have to walk through a gate. It seems then as if there is no end to them, like one of the hosts of heaven.’
‘I believe we can trust George to close the gate after us,’
Edward said. It was an olive branch offered to his brother and George nodded, pleased to be counted part of the friendship he saw between the other two. His smile faded as Edward and Richard rode off together, trotting their mounts through the sucking mud to reach the front.
Both men preferred to lead rather than to follow. George of Clarence wondered if he would ever feel the same, perhaps as age tempered him. Looking after them, it was hard to be sure. Richard was the youngest, but he had spent vital years out of the shadow of his brothers. It was one reason for having young noblemen go as wards to other families – they had to learn to lead rather than to be dominated at every turn by the firstborn of their own line.
George stared down the road after his brothers until the last ranks had marched away and he was left with just the scouts, waiting on his order. He looked up, working a finger into his ear to scratch an itch.
‘Very well, gentlemen. Close the gate,’ he said. ‘Then close them all.’
Clarence guided his horse to the very centre of the road to watch the light beyond reduced, with a pair of matched black oxen grunting and straining alongside him. The last few inches narrowed with a thump, then men stepped forward to drive iron poles into slots against the lower edge. It was no small deed, closing a London gate. Or keeping one open.
It seemed darker inside when it was done. Clarence felt the itch again in his ear and worked his finger in as deep as he could, opening and closing his mouth as he turned away and followed his brothers into the city.
‘Where to, Your Highness?’ Richard called to his brother, his voice strained. The crowds seemed to have thickened wherever they went, pressing in along the side alleys and
standing three deep against the walls. Others darted like children or imbeciles through the marching men, always in danger of being knocked down and trampled. They were not cheering, Richard noticed. The whispers and darting movements made the York guards nervous, though the crowds did not seem hostile or even sullen. For the most part, they just watched the sons of York. Some touched their foreheads and hats out of respect. Others glared or turned aside to mutter and laugh with friends.
The roadway from Moorgate through the centre of the city was glutinous, a mixture of mud, pig’s blood from butchers’ shops, various chemical outpourings that stung the nose, and of course the ordure of both animal and man, sitting in forgotten piles where the original owners had left them. What sewers there were sometimes leaked back into the streets and the results were fairly eye-watering. Edward found himself breathing shallowly as he went deeper and deeper in, waiting for his lungs to accept the stronger air. It was good for you, so they said.
He considered his brother’s question seriously. On entering, Edward had experienced a soaring confidence, a giddy sense almost of awe. He had not dared to imagine he would see the London streets again, not riding in at the head of an army to take back his throne. That delighted madness had drained slowly away under the stares of thousands of men and women, all interrupting their day’s work to come and see him pass.
Control of London meant the Tower and the Royal Mint, St Paul’s, the river itself and the Guildhall, where the lord mayor had retired to his rooms and refused to come out. It meant lords and wealth, both of which would be vital. Yet on that first day, there was little Edward actually needed in the walled part of the city, for all the symbolism of entering.
Scouts and messengers came back and forth as he walked his horse, some accepting payment. Richard glanced down at promises and oaths, at men declaring new loyalty and wasting no time in making claims against land and titles they had lost. He passed on just a few more pressing snippets he thought Edward might want to know. In that way, they learned that King Henry lay prostrate in the royal rooms at Westminster. It seemed the poor fellow had been driven almost to collapse by some farce of a walk through the city the day before.
The Royal Palace of Westminster lay away from the foul odours of the city proper, a good mile along the river – and in that cluster of Parliament and Abbey, of jewel house and Westminster Hall, lay everything that mattered to Edward. Yet he was unutterably weary and content to let them all wait on his pleasure. Baynard’s Castle was a York fortress on the river bank. The thought of resting there in peace and safety made him yawn until his jaw cracked.
‘The men are exhausted,’ Edward said at last, gesturing his brother closer. ‘In truth, I am tired and sore myself. Forty miles today, enough for anyone. Pass word for the captains to seek out warehouses, taverns, empty houses – anywhere they can find room to rest and be fed. London will have to put our good fellows up for a night or two.’
He looked around him for some sign of support, but there was none visible in the crowd. They stood, large-eyed and lugubrious, with even the usual chatter and sounds of movement dying away.
Edward raised his head. He understood the people of England had been battered back and forth over the years. Just months ago, they had been expected to cheer and pay their taxes as stout Yorkist folk, with Edward on the throne. Then he had been turned out – and King Henry was there once more, returned to their loving and bemused embrace.
Edward stared haughtily around him, responding to their scrutiny by puffing out his chest and staring them down. Though he might understand a little resentment, he was
damned
if he would acknowledge it. London was his city, the capital of his kingdom. They were his subjects. They could swallow that truth and choke on it. He felt his anger lend strength to tired muscles so that he straightened further.
‘I think, Richard, that I will
not
rest after all, not yet. Call out a few score of the men to walk to Westminster with me before they settle down, would you?’
Richard of Gloucester turned his horse out of the marching ranks and gestured to Lord Rivers as he came abreast. The Woodville earl seemed pleased to be called, though he grew less pleased at every passing moment.
‘My brother and I will be going on this evening, my lord,’ Richard said. ‘I leave the army and London in your hands, excepting only … eighty of our better knights to guard His Majesty.’
‘I would be honoured to join them,’ Lord Rivers replied. He preferred to remain close to his brother-in-law and was mulish when kept out of the councils between the York brothers. Richard found the man tiresome and it was exactly for that reason that he had brought him up short that day.
‘No, I don’t think so. I have given you my brother’s command, Lord Rivers. Edward and I will ride on to Westminster, returning later tonight or tomorrow. I imagine there will be a crowning then, perhaps in St Paul’s, where the city can be reminded York has returned – glory be to us, and so on and so on. Now, I am weary, Lord Rivers. Have you understood what I have said to you?’
‘I believe I have, my lord,’ Rivers replied, though the muscles in his jaw bunched alarmingly. Richard dismissed the man back to the ranks and returned to his brother, already
thinking of the night ahead. He was tired, it was true, but he was also eighteen years old and he could remain awake for two days straight if he had to. He saw Edward yawn hugely, and was not sure his brother would manage quite as well.
‘God’s bones, we
know
where he is
now
!’ Exeter roared, his voice so loud it was a weapon in itself. ‘He is in London, eating slices of pink beef and murdering King Henry! There is no mystery, Neville! He and his treacherous bastards crept past us because we thought he’d come to challenge or begin a siege. I have never seen such a shit-poor example of battle offered and refused in all my life. I tell you, Neville …’