Lady of the Roses (41 page)

“Dear lady,” Dickon said, “whatever it is you wish to ask, know that if it lies within my power, it is already granted.”

I recovered my composure and found the words, “Your Grace…I request the wardship of my son, George. He is…he is the light of my heart now…. It would be difficult…difficult…to give him up.”

I saw the young duke swallow. Then he said, “Marchioness, I shall have the papers signed forthwith and delivered to you at Seaton Delaval within the week.”

“Thank you, my lord.” As I left the tent, I was swept by an impulse I could not suppress. Turning, I said, “There is much about you that reminds me of my John, Your Grace. He loved you truly.”

The young duke didn’t reply. He merely gave me a taut nod of acknowledgment, but I saw that the corners of his mouth worked with emotion. I knew he had loved Warwick’s daughter Anne since childhood and had been unable, as yet, to surmount the obstacles that kept them apart, even though her husband, Edward of Lancaster, lay dead on the field of Tewkesbury. Silently, in my heart, I blew him a kiss and wished him love.

For love is all there is.

1476

ON THE THIRD OF MAY, TWO DAYS AFTER MAY
Day and my fourth wedding anniversary to William Norris, I left for Bisham with Ursula, Geoffrey, and Gower.

“Are you sure you will be all right, Isobel?”

William’s eyes rested on me with heartrending tenderness and concern. From astride my horse, I gave my husband a smile of reassurance.

“I am fine, William…. I will be fine.” I bent down and laid my hand gently on his cheek. “You worry too much. I’ll send word from Bisham when I arrive.”

He nodded and stepped back reluctantly. I spurred Rose. Ursula, Tom, and Geoffrey fell into a canter beside me. I waved until William was out of sight; then, with the need for pretense gone, I sagged in my saddle and pressed my hand to my brow to steady my dizzy head. Since the birth of my dead child the previous year, I had been ailing. I knew my heart was giving out at last. A few weeks ago, I could barely stand; soon I would be unable to sit erect. It had begun with fatigue that had descended on me after Barnet and worsened. Now there was bruising that did not heal. My body told me I had not long to live, and I wished to die in Bisham.

John lay buried in Bisham.

For centuries Bisham Priory had been the final resting place of the Neville family, and it was to Bisham that John had been brought after the Battle of Barnet to be buried with his brother Thomas, and his father and mother, and with Warwick, who had died with him. His brother Archbishop George, who had gone over to Edward before the battle, had dabbled in treason against King Edward soon after Barnet, and spent years imprisoned in the fortress of Hammes in Calais. His confinement under such harsh conditions had broken his health. Dickon of Gloucester had finally procured his release, but George had died last month, after only two years of freedom. He was buried at York Cathedral, the only Neville not to lie at Bisham Priory.

“Are you sure you’re all right, dear lady Isobel?” Ursula asked.

I gazed at my beloved friend, my mind crowded with memories. Her father, Sir Thomas Malory, was another who had died at Barnet. In those early days after that terrible battle in the fog, Ursula had comforted me in my grief at John’s death and never breathed a word about her own loss.
So many deaths, so much sorrow…To how many was it given to enjoy long life and die in their own bed, untouched by war?
No one I knew. Maybe one day my children’s children might be blessed with such a world, but that time was not ours. Soon after Barnet came the Battle of Tewkesbury. York had triumphed there, too, and dear King Henry had died at the Tower the following night. Murdered, it was said, by King Edward.

“Now, Ursula, don’t you start,” I scolded gently. “I’m fine. ’Tis a fine May day. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the woods are beautiful. What more can I ask? See the blossoms…” I reached up and plucked a flower from a wild cherry tree as we passed beneath a bough bent low and bright with blossom. On such a day nineteen years ago, John and I were wed at Raby Castle, and I wore cherry blossoms in my hair.
Sorrows, aye, but happiness too. Such happiness…
If the road I had trodden had been scattered with thorns, it had also been richly petaled with roses.

After Barnet, I had been determined to dwell not on the sorrow but on the happiness that had been mine, for the specter of Countess Alice had haunted me from the day I received news of John’s death. With my weak heart, it would have been a small matter to give in to my grief, but my children were still so young. They needed me, and I had made the vow to Heaven. It proved a good decision. The love I had known, even as it faded into memory, had sustained me. I fingered my jeweled saddle. The gilt was gone now, the leather thin and cracked, but the ruby still sparkled with brilliance, just as it had that day I went to meet John in the saddle shop.

“My lady, pray be truthful,” Ursula said in a plaintive voice.

I turned my gaze on her. I couldn’t fool Ursula; she knew me too well; and in any case I remained in her debt. Through maidenhood, marriage, motherhood, and widowhood, she had stood by me, this dear friend, and held my hand, and mourned with me, and celebrated with me.

“I need to go to Bisham,” I whispered, so Geoffrey and Tom wouldn’t hear. “’Tis time, Ursula….”

She didn’t reply right away, and when she did, I saw that tears stood in her eyes. I had caught tears in her eyes too often of late, and I couldn’t help an inward sigh. It is always harder on those who are left behind.

“Aye, my dear Isobel,” she said in a barely audible voice, “I know about your heart…but it has been so for years. I hoped to be told I was wrong.”

I reached out and patted her hand. “Do not grieve for me, Ursula, beloved friend. I am at peace.”

I inhaled the lovely, scented air, admiring the ever-changing scenery, for the tender green of springtime brightened the landscape. Even the animals rejoiced. Dappled sunlight lit the woods, the world resounded with birdsong, and the forests quickened with the footsteps of fox and deer. In the fields, newborn lambs and calves struggled to stand. We trotted along the winding path in silence, twigs and branches crackling around us as squirrels chased one another around the trees.

I had a sudden sense of time propelled backward—at fifteen, I had journeyed south along this same road, seeking my future, and after John’s death, I had again faced the same choice: to wed again or enter a nunnery. I thought of Sœur Madeleine. She had died soon after I last saw her in London when I was betrothed to John, but I had been so much more fortunate than dear Sœur Madeleine. I had living children. Life had taken from me too, but, oh, how much it had given in return!

The image of Marguerite as she had been when I visited her in captivity flashed into my mind. I willed it gone, for it dredged up great sorrow of what might have been. After her son’s death at Tewkesbury, fire and joy had deserted her. Bereft, crushed by the misfortune, she sat all day in a chair, a vacant look in her eyes as she gazed back at the past, and that was the way I had found her when I visited Wallingford Castle. Though she knew me and was able to speak, she had become an empty shell, a repository of memories. I thought of Countess Alice. What Marguerite had dealt to others had come back to her, but where lay comfort in that? More than any of us, she had written her own story; yet she could not wash it out with all her tears, return to her victims what she had torn from them, and by so doing, save herself….

After John’s death, I was sorely tempted to choose the peaceful cloister where I might return to the past and be with him, if only in my thoughts, but, then, what would become of the children? They would be given over to a guardian who would one day sell their marriage to the highest bidder—and what if that guardian were the Woodville queen? I could not abandon my precious girls to such a fate. For in many ways, Elizabeth Woodville had proven herself more vile and hateful than Marguerite, so much so that Warwick’s parting words to Edward had held a dire warning:
“Your queen is a woman so reviled throughout the land that no blood of her ilk will be permitted to mount the throne of England!”
A dread prophecy, for kings were not cast out without a heavy price paid in blood, as our lives bore testament.

After Barnet, William Norris came to pay his respects to me at Seaton Delaval. He told me he loved me—’tis why he had never wed, he said. He knew I didn’t love him, but he claimed that mattered not. If I would marry him, he vowed I’d never regret it. And I never had. He was a good man, William, and well I knew the pain of love denied, for I remembered those days after Tattershall as clearly as if they had transpired yesterday instead of years ago.

We were married a year later, on May Day after the first anniversary of John’s death. May the Blessed Lord forgive me, but during my wedding service with William, I silently renewed my own vows to John and reminded him, wherever he was, why I was doing this, and of what he had often said when he walked this earth with me: “In last year’s nest, there are no eggs.”

We must go forward, my dearest love, and do our best for those who need us,
I whispered in my heart. Ever mindful of his last words to me, I added,
Until we meet again.

As we journeyed over the lovely meadows and fields blooming with wildflowers, I thought about William. I felt badly leaving him without a proper farewell, knowing I would never be back, but I did it for his sake. It would have distressed him too much to know how ill I really was…so ill, I wasn’t certain I’d make it to Bisham alive. The sickness sapped my strength daily.

The knowledge that I had done my best for William gave me comfort now. I had cared for him tenderly, and if I could never replace the one to whom I had given my heart at Tattershall Castle, at least I had made certain that William had never felt unloved, by word or deed. I also found comfort in the knowledge that this good and honorable man would see to it that my girls made suitable—perhaps even happy—marriages. But he was not powerful enough to protect my eleven-year-old George from those who would seek his wardship for the few pounds of inheritance he held. To safeguard my precious son from the Woodvilles, I had to seek out the highest reaches of power. Fortunately I was not left friendless. John’s niece, Warwick’s daughter Anne, had wed at last her childhood sweetheart, Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Now I could die in peace, leaving my George in their loving care, where he would be safe.

A smile came to me as I thought about my beautiful son. For certain he would be romping somewhere with Roland now. The two were as inseparable as John and Rufus had been.

As soon as I arrived in Bisham, I wrote William as I had promised. Then I wrote Nan. She now lived with her daughter Anne at Middleham, since she had no residence of her own and was a virtual pauper. For she had been deprived of her worldly possessions by her dreadful son-in-law, the traitor Clarence, Dickon’s greedy brother, who had gone over to Edward just before Barnet. He would come to no good end, of that I had no doubt.

When my letter was safely on its way to Anne and her mother, I took to my bed. For sleep, I had great need, but for food, none. That was most unusual, for I had always enjoyed a good appetite, but I knew I had to preserve my strength, and so I forced myself to take broth every day. Thus I waited, inquiring each day whether my Anne and her mother had arrived, and when I was told that they had not yet come, I drank my broth and closed my eyes, and fell asleep again until the next day.

Finally, on the twentieth of May, Anne and her mother arrived at Bisham. I was deeply grateful to have lived long enough to see them again, for little Anne’s voice stirred memories, and I was reminded of the happy three-year-old child who used to call out after me each time I left her castle.

Fighting a terrible weariness, I tried to open my eyes and welcome them, but my lids proved simply too heavy this morning. The physician’s voice droned on at my bedside. Thinking I didn’t comprehend, he didn’t trouble to lower his voice, and I heard every word. “’Tis her heart. ’Tis very weak. At thirty-five she is not truly old, and certainly she is strong enough to recover, but she seems to have lost the will to live.”

“Does Norris know?” the countess asked softly.

“We have sent him word in London. He is on his way, my lady.” Ursula’s voice.
Dear Ursula. How glad I am that she found love!

“She is so lovely…and she looks so young, Mother,” said a gentle voice I had trouble identifying. Then I realized it had to be little Anne. With great effort, I willed my eyes open.

“Dear Anne…you’ve grown…sweet child….” Then, depleted by my excitement and the effort it had taken to get out the words, my lids closed again on me. I heard murmurings and suddenly realized the error I had made. I forced my eyes open once more. “Forgive me…Your Grace…. I forgot you…are grown…and a duchess now….”

A hand stroked my hair with a tender touch, soothing my spirit.

“Aunt Isobel, it is just me, just your little Anne,” she whispered. “Aye, I am grown, and I have a son of my own now, like you….”

How could I have forgotten why I wished to see her—why I so desperately needed her here at Bisham, why I had written as soon as I had arrived and asked her to come? If I died before I spoke to her about George, how would my soul ever find repose? My lids felt like stones on my eyes, and my arms lay like boulders beside me, but I heaved up the stones and found the strength to seize her hand, even more to raise myself on an elbow. “George—don’t let them get my George—” I panted. My breath caught again, but fear made me labor hard. I devoured another intake of air into my lungs and tightened my grasp of her hand—she had to understand, I had to make her understand how important it was, what was at stake! “Take him with you—raise him as a Neville—” I forced more air into my body. “Don’t leave my George to their mercy, I pray you!” My strength left me. I could no longer hold up the stones and boulders that oppressed me. I collapsed on the pillow and closed my eyes, heaving for breath.

“Aunt Isobel, you need have no fear. We shall get his wardship and raise George with us at Middleham. He shall have every benefit we can possibly provide him. He shall know what a noble and honorable knight his father was—”

I heard muffled sobs in the background, and I knew they cried for me, but I had been given what I had asked for, what I had so desperately needed, both at the beginning of my journey at fifteen and now, at its end, and my heart lay content within my breast. I smiled.

A familiar voice reached my ears. “John?” I murmured.
How
can that be?
With great effort, I turned my head and forced my eyes open again.

John stood in the corner of the room, near the chamber door, gazing at me. He wore the same green doublet and high boots he had worn at Tattershall Castle, and he looked so young, so handsome, just as he had looked on the night of the dance…the night of the pavane…. Suddenly I felt a burst of energy surge from my heart to my lungs, and I cried out in joy, “Oh, John, my love, is it truly you?”

John smiled. “It is, my angel.”