Lady of the Roses (35 page)

To whom?
I thought.
To Nan, to Maude? To Lady Conyers, Lady Scrope, or Lady Clinton, whose husbands now fight for Warwick, in the enemy camp?

“To the Earl of Northumberland,” he said finally.

“As you are well aware, my lord husband is guarding the sea at Bamburgh from his brother Warwick.” I hurled the words at him. “Who is there to speak to, Geoffrey?” I cried.

Geoffrey swallowed. “Ursula will be back soon from her trip to York.”

“Why can’t you tell me?”

He shook his head miserably.

“Send for her now,” I agreed reluctantly. Ursula had a long list of shopping to do, which included buying materials for gowns for the children, and she might be a week unless I summoned her.

Ursula was back the next day, in low spirits. Just before my summons arrived, she had learned that her father’s trial had been deferred yet again.

“The Woodville queen has managed on one ruse or another to keep my father in prison for three years without trial, just as Marguerite did in the fifties when he sided with the Duke of York,” Ursula said despondently.

“What excuse did they give this time?”

“They said there were no jurors to try him.”

I heaved a weary sigh. It could be true. Entire villages had been depleted of men as they all chose sides and left to prepare for battle.

“Ursula,” I said, broaching the subject I had been waiting so desperately to bring up, “something has happened…something that is surely evil. No one will tell me what it is. Do you know?”

Ursula turned pale. “Nay, dear lady Isobel…I know not.”

“Don’t lie to me!” I screamed. “Everyone lies to me!” I broke into frenzied pacing. “They can’t leave the room fast enough when I enter. If I bid them remain, they watch me like a mouse in the company of a snake. I am no longer welcome in the homes of the women I go to aid in childbirth! I have no friends. My lord husband has not come home for a month, nor has he written! Something has happened, and I must know what it is!” I seized her by the shoulders. “You have to tell me, Ursula, or I shall go mad! What have I done?”

Ursula averted her gaze. She grew pale, and I saw that she trembled. A cold knot formed in my stomach. “What is it? What’s so horrible, Ursula?”

She gave me a look of utter misery. “May we go to the river?”

A choking fear caught at my throat as I turned to lead the way. Along the passageway of delicate arches, we went down the tower steps, out the gate, and over the cracked earth wet with patches of snow. We trod to the riverbank, where we had spent so many happy afternoons romping with the children. I took a seat on a stone bench and drew my skirts close to make room for Ursula. From across the way, edged by a long row of larch trees sighing in the wind, sheep watched us as church bells pealed in the village.

Ursula spoke at last. “You asked what you had done, dear lady. ’Tis not what you have done, for you are the kindest, most gracious mistress anyone can hope to have.” She fell silent. I waited. “’Tis what your uncle, the Earl of Worcester, has done.”

I bit my lip until it throbbed like my pulse.

“I learned of it in York. I had hoped to keep it from you. I had hoped for you never to know. ’Tis naught you can change.”

“Nevertheless, I must be told.”

“I see that now….” She heaved an audible breath. “There was a sea battle. My lord of Warwick escaped to Calais, but Anthony Woodville captured twenty-three of his men. He turned them over to your uncle. The Earl of Worcester—” She broke off.

My hand shook as I pleated and unpleated a fold of my gown.

“They were of the better class, so it was thought they would be dealt with less harshly.”

I closed my eyes.

“The Earl of Worcester executed them by driving stakes into their buttocks and out their mouths. They’re calling him the Butcher of England, for he had them—”

My stomach wrenched violently, and the bitter gall of vomit flooded me. I covered my mouth with both my hands and dropped from the bench to the water’s edge. Ducks scattered with a sharp quacking as I retched.

Ursula moved to my side. She knelt down and encircled my shoulder with a gentle touch. She helped me up and led me back to the bench. I fell onto it, my breath coming in audible gasps. “Agnes—her husband’s cousin—was he—?”

“She thought he might be one of them…but, God be loved, he was not. He is safe with my earl of Northumberland. She received word this morning.”

I closed my eyes.
Thank God for this small mercy!
Then the sick feeling came over me again.
But what about the others? What had they ever done to warrant such agony of death?
And the thought came to me, revolving in my head with the crash of cymbals—
I am the niece of the one they call the Butcher of England, the niece of the Butcher of England….

I winced and put my hands to my ears to shut out the horrible din, but it did no good.
I am the niece of the one they call the Impaler….

“You should not have made me tell you, for what good can come of knowing?” Ursula whispered. “I fear you will not soon sleep again.”

She was right. I did not sleep again, except for one hour in twenty-four, nor could I eat. My heart behaved more strangely than ever, at times pounding wildly and knocking against my ribs, at other times lying still and missing beats. Fortunately the cramping did not come again, for it brought great pain. Yet nothing was as painful as my new knowledge that even John blamed me, and shunned me, and wanted nothing more to do with me. And how could anyone blame him? I was the niece of the Butcher of England, was I not? The niece of the man they called
ille trux carnifex et hominum decollator horridus.
That savage butcher and horrible decapitator of mankind.

I kept to my room all the next day, sitting on a chair, staring out at the river. By the time Ursula rapped at the door to check on me, I had reached a decision.

“Summon the household to the great hall, Ursula,” I said, my voice weak. Never did I know speech could demand such effort. “Everyone must be there. I shall address them in one hour. In the meanwhile, I am not to be disturbed.”

She nodded and withdrew. The door shut. I slumped in my chair and closed my weary eyes.

I LOOKED AT THE SERVANTS GATHERED BEFORE
me. They were all present—Geoffrey, Agnes, the porters, the men-at-arms, the varlets, the grooms of the stable, the saddlers, the armorers and their boy helpers, the kitchen maids and cooks, the scullions, the butchers, the embroiderers and maids of the wardrobe, the nurses and the spinners, the weavers and the chaplet maker, even the reeve, the bailiff, the steward, the monks, and the friars. They stood watching me carefully, yet avoided my gaze by dropping their eyes when mine rested on them. All were wary and ready to dart away, like deer in a forest when the sound of human footsteps reaches their ears.

I braced myself and drew a deep breath.

“For the past month, there has been a change in your behavior that has not gone unnoticed. This change puzzled me, for I divined not its cause. Some of you have been with me for many years, and others are newly come, yet I believed you all knew how I cared for each of you. As your mistress, I have always striven to treat you well and fairly, arbitrating your quarrels in a just manner, and distributing your tasks between you equally so no one person would be taxed more than another. When you were sick, I did not permit you to work, and I tended you myself when you were in labor with child.”

I paused.

“Now I have learned the reason why many of you have been troubled in my employ. I wish you to understand that I had no part in my uncle’s decision to—to—to do as he did. Like you, I grieve with all my heart for those poor, unfortunate souls and for their families—may God in His infinite mercy take note of their suffering and forgive their sins! Men of the cloth tell us that in the eyes of God we are accountable only for our own actions, but in the eyes of man, I know we bear culpability for the actions of our blood kin. Anyone who wishes to leave my service may do so, and they shall receive an extra month’s pay, and if ever they have need of me, they will always be admitted to my favor.”

I waited, drained by my short speech, which had exerted me to the limits of my resolve. “That is all. You are dismissed.”

Only one of my servants, a new hire, left my employ. The next morning, as Agnes made the bed, she comforted me. “He’s too young to understand much o’ life yet, but he’ll soon learn. The rest o’ us, we were fool to hold you responsible, me dear lady. You have no more to do with these happenings than us.”

I touched her arm mutely in a gesture of gratitude. Then I left in search of Ursula. “I’m going to Bamburgh, Ursula,” I said, hardly able to lift my voice above a whisper. “Have Geoffrey pack up the horses.”

Ursula gave me a knowing, doleful look. She said nothing but merely nodded.

AT BAMBURGH CASTLE’S HIGH WALLS AND DRAWN
gate, Geoffrey announced me to the porter. The portcullis was cranked open amid a great clattering of chains, and I entered. The soldiers we passed gave me formal and cool reception, but I scarcely noticed, my mind and will bent on what I would say to John. As it was bitterly cold, and I was in a hurry, I did not wait for John’s captain, Sir Marmaduke Constable, to come to me, but asked a man-at-arms to take me to him in the armory.

He gave me a curt obeisance. “My lord of Northumberland is not here, my lady. We can make you comfortable in the antechamber, if it pleases you.”

“Where has he gone?” I demanded. I had not come to sit and wait.

“He rode out alone on the beach about an hour ago. He did not say when he would be back.”

“In that case, kindly seat my entourage by the fire, and give them warm wine and food, for we have journeyed long and are chilled. As for me, bring me a blanket and direct me which way my lord has taken, and I shall find him myself.”

It was past Vespers. The sun was beginning to set, and the wild North Sea was a molten silver as the surf pounded the long, empty stretch of shore. Stumbling down the hard slope, across the long grasses and weeds that lined the edges of the sand, I wandered along the desolate beach, searching for John. Then on the wind I heard a dog’s bark and a horse’s whinny. Against the vast expanse of darkening sky, beneath the thunderous clouds racing across the earth, I saw Saladin and the outline of a tall, solitary figure standing on a high bluff, staring over the deserted sea with somber intensity, tawny hair whipping in the wind.

John.

I ran along the sand and climbed up to him in silence. Rufus, old and arthritic, struggled to rise and wag his tail, but there was no welcome from John. He didn’t even turn to look at me. Inside my breast, I felt a twist of pain. I wasted no words on useless greeting.

“John, surely, dear God, you don’t blame me?” I cried.

He didn’t reply; he didn’t even look at me. He just stood staring out to sea, at the churning expanse of water, as if he did not know I was there.

“John, if you still have a heart, answer me!”

He spoke then, but without looking at me. “Those men your uncle skewered, they had families who loved them. They were human beings.”

His voice was so cold, it chilled me more than the blustering wind whipping my blanket around me. “Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think I care? I never, ever blamed you for what Warwick did! Why do you hold me responsible for my uncle’s misdeeds?”

He turned his eyes on me then, and I shrank back at the anger I saw in them. “You always knew how I felt about Warwick’s actions. ’Tis clear enough to the world how I stand. But never once have you said a word against your uncle, even now. For God’s own sake, Isobel, those men were sons and husbands and fathers. What is your blood made of that you can ignore this? Or forgive?”

I could not believe my ears. I stared at him, mute in my bewilderment. Then words found me.

“I have always hated my uncle’s cruelties! I thought you knew me, and so you knew how I felt! Loyalty kept me from voicing my condemnation, for we owe him our marriage. But if I could have dissuaded my uncle…if I could turn back the work of time and give my life so it never happened, I would do so in an instant! My heart breaks for them, for those men—those boys. What can I do to prove it to you? Oh, John, my love, how can you think I condone such brutality, such horror? I don’t condone it—I don’t forgive it, but he is my uncle, he is my blood. I cannot change what he did! I must find a way to abide it, but I’ll never understand it, or forgive! Oh, John, why do we live in this hell? Why must it be so—”

I broke off, unable to continue, and through my tears and the sobs that wracked me, I flung out the thought that had been with me for years. “If only Wakefield hadn’t happened, how different might all this be!”

“But Wakefield did happen,” John replied coldly. “All else followed, and it is as it is.”

“John, my beloved lord, you once said that I have been your comfort. Will you not be mine now?” I cried.

No response; his face hard, impassive, he did not look at me. To my horror, he turned to leave.
He cannot bear the sight of me!

The ground rocked, beneath my feet, and the world I had known heaved itself over. Falling, I reached out for support and caught his hand as I sank to my knees on the thorny ground. For thirteen years, through all life’s storms and blows, my belief in love had sustained me. Now love was gone, dissolving in my grasp even as I thought to hold it firm. I let go of his hand. Swept with desolation and grief, I covered my face and choked back my sobs. The wind howled around me, and I felt raindrops wet my face and mingle with the salt spray of the sea and my own tears. I knelt there, cloaked in my blanket, my mind numb, struggling to comprehend this terrible new world that had suddenly become mine.

But John had not gone. I felt him kneel beside me. “Isobel…”

He removed my hands from my face. Cupping my chin in his hand, he made me look at him. In the dimness, his eyes were moist, and his mouth worked with emotion. He wrapped his arms around me.