‘What have you done, in the king’s name, Derry Brewer?’ York hissed at him. ‘Tell me this is not so. Tell me that we haven’t just given up lands won back to good Englishmen by Henry of Monmouth.’
‘His son, our
king
, wanted a truce, Lord York, so yes, that is exactly what we have done,’ Derry replied. He removed the hand on his shoulder, deliberately squeezing the bones together as he did so. York grunted in pain, though he resisted the urge to rub his hand when he had it back.
‘This
is
treason. You will swing for this, along with that fool Suffolk.’
‘And the king at our sides, I suppose? Lord York, is it possible you have failed to comprehend the arrangement? Maine and Anjou are the price for twenty years of truce. Will you gainsay your own king in this? It is what
he
wanted. We who are his humble servants can only give way to the royal will.’
To his surprise, York stood back and smiled coldly at him.
‘I think you will discover that there are consequences to these games, Derry Brewer. Whatever you think you have
accomplished, the news is out now. As your secret deals are heard, the country will know only that King Henry has given away territories won by his father – and by English blood, shed on the battlefields. They will say … Oh, I will leave you to work out what they will say. I wish you luck, but I want you to remember that I warned you.’ For a moment, York chuckled and shook his head. ‘Do you think they will go meekly, those Englishmen, just because a fat French lord points them back to Normandy? You have overreached yourself with your cleverness, Brewer. Men will die because of it.’
‘Are you selling lavender as well as prophecy? I ask because I would value a sprig of lavender and there are no gypsy women here.’
He thought York would lose his temper then, but the man merely smiled once more.
‘I have sight of you now, Derry Brewer. My men have sight of you. I wish you luck getting back to Calais, but I fear it is not with you today. All your bright magpie chatter will not serve you when we catch you up on the road.’
‘What an odd thing to say to me, Lord York! I will see you again in London or Calais, I’m certain. For the moment, though, the French king has invited me to accompany him on a hunt. I like him, Richard. He speaks English ever so well.’
Derry raised a hand to catch the attention of the French noble party. One of the barons saw and gestured in reply, calling him over. With a last insouciant raise of the eyebrows for York’s benefit, Derry strolled across to them.
Outside the town, the French army began to pack up its camp, ready to take command of more new land won in a morning than in the ten years before that day. Duke René was beaming as Derry reached the group. More than a dozen
of his peers stood close around him, clapping him on the shoulders and calling their loud congratulations. To Derry’s surprise, the Frenchman had tears running down his pale cheeks. He saw Derry’s expression and laughed.
‘Oh, you English, you are too cold. Do you not understand I have my family land back today? These are tears of joy, monsieur.’
‘Ah, the best kind,’ Derry replied. ‘There was talk of a hunt when His Majesty invited me to accompany him?’
Duke René’s eyes changed subtly in the light.
‘I suspect His Majesty King Charles was amusing himself at your expense, monsieur. There will be no hunting of boar or wolves, not today. Yet His Majesty will accompany his army as they move north through my land. Who can say what English deer we will find shivering in my family fields and vineyards?’
‘I see,’ Derry said, his good humour vanishing. ‘I suspect I will not join you after all, Lord Anjou. If you don’t mind, I will remain here for a time, while I make arrangements to return home.’
He watched Richard of York striding away to give orders to the thousand men he had brought south. They too would withdraw to Normandy. The duke had no choice at all. For a moment, Derry had a sickening sense that York was not the fool he thought he was. There were many English settlers in Maine and Anjou, that much was true. Surely they would not be foolish enough to resist? The agreements King Henry had signed allowed for the peaceful uprooting of English families in the French provinces. Yet the mood of the nobles all around him was indeed that of a hunt. They showed their teeth and he could sense a febrile excitement in the air that worried him. Derry could taste nervous acid in his throat.
If the English in Maine and Anjou refused to go, it could yet mean a war. All the work he had put in, all the months of scheming, would be wasted. The hard-won truce would last no longer than frost in summer.
For three days, the French army and York’s soldiers shadowed each other, moving north through Anjou. Duke Richard’s men pulled far ahead after that, in part because the French king stopped and held court in every town. The royal party made a grand tour of the Loire valley, making camp whenever King Charles saw something of interest or wished to see a church with the bones of a particular saint. The rivers and vineyards stretching over many miles of land gave him especial pleasure.
Hundreds of Anjou families were evicted by rough French soldiers running ahead of the main army. In shock and despair, they took to the roads in carts or on foot, a great stream of suddenly beggared subjects that only grew each day. York pulled his men back to the new border of English land in France, picketing them on the outskirts of Normandy as the flood of evacuees kept coming, filling every village and town with their misery and complaints. Some of them called angrily for justice from King Henry for their losses, but most were too stunned and powerless to do more than weep and curse.
The evictions went on and there were soon tales of rape and murder to add to the chaos and upheaval as the families came in. As the weeks passed, minor lords sent furious letters and messengers demanding that English forces protect their own, but York set them aside unread. Even if the evictions hadn’t been by decree of an English king, he wanted them to come home with their tales of humiliation. It would fan
flames in England, making a fire that would surely consume Derry Brewer and Lord Suffolk. He did not know if the unrest would reach as far as the king himself, but they had brought it about between them and they deserved to be shamed and vilified for what they had done.
Each evening, York went to the church tower of Jublains and looked south over the fields. As the sun set, he could see hundreds of English men, women and children staggering towards the safe border, each with their own story of violence and cruelty. He only wished Derry Brewer or Suffolk, or even King Henry himself, could see what they had brought about.
He heard footsteps on the stone stairs as he stood there, watching the sun set on the forty-third day after the wedding. York looked round in surprise as he saw his wife ascending.
‘What’s this? You should be resting, not climbing cold steps. Where is Percival? I’ll have his ears for it.’
‘Peace, Richard,’ Cecily replied, panting slightly. ‘I know my own strength and I sent Percival away to fetch me cold, pressed juice. I just wanted to see the view that keeps you up here each evening.’
York waved at the open window. In other circumstances, he might have appreciated the dark gold and rose of a French sunset, but as it was, he was oblivious to its beauty.
Cecily leaned on the wide sill after edging around a great bronze bell.
‘Ah, I see,’ she said. ‘Those little people. Are they the English you mentioned?’
‘Yes, all coming north into Normandy with their sorrows and petty rages, as if I do not have enough troubles. I don’t come to watch them. I come because I’m expecting to see the French army marching up here before the year is out.’
‘Will they stop here?’ Cecily asked, her eyes widening.
‘Of
course they will stop! Evicting families is more to their taste than English archers. We’ll turn them round and send them south again if they put one foot on English land.’
His wife relaxed visibly.
‘Lord Derby’s wife was saying it’s all an awful mess. Her husband thinks we should tear up whatever agreement has been made and begin again. He says the king must not have been in his right mind …’
‘Hush, my dear. Whatever the truth of it, we have no choice but to defend the new border. In a year or two, perhaps I will be given the chance to take it back in battle. We’ve lost Maine and Anjou before, under King John. Who knows what the future will hold?’
‘But there
is
a truce, Richard? Lord Derby says there will be twenty years of peace.’
‘Lord Derby has a lot to say to his wife, it seems.’
The tower was as private a place to be found in France, but even so, York stepped close to his wife, running his hand over the bulge of the child growing within her.
‘The mood is ugly among the men, my dear. I have reports of unrest and it has only just begun to spread. I would prefer to know you are safe at home. King Henry has lost the faith of his lords. This will not end well, when enough of them learn it was his hand behind it – and Suffolk’s name on the treaty. I’ll have William de la Pole tried for treason, I swear it. By God, to think I am separated from the throne by the distance of one brother! If my grandfather Edmund had been born before John of Gaunt,
I
would be wearing the crown that sits so poorly on Henry’s head. I tell you, Cecily, if I were king, I would not give back a single foot of land to the French, not till the last trumpet blast! This is
our
land and I have to watch as it is given away by fools and schemers. Jesus wept! King Henry is a simpleton. I knew it when he was a
boy. He spent too much time with monks and cardinals and not enough wielding a sword like his father. They ruined him, Cecily. They ruined the son of my king with their prayers and poetry.’
‘So let them fall, Richard,’ Cecily said, placing a hand against her husband’s chest and feeling the heart beating strongly. ‘Let them reap the whirlwind, while you grow in strength. Who knows, but you may find yourself in reach of the crown in time? If Henry is as weak as you say?’
Paling, York put a hand tight over his wife’s mouth.
‘Not even here, my darling. Not aloud, not even whispered. It does not need to be said, do you understand?’
Her eyes were bright as he removed his hand. The last rays of the sun were shining into the tower, the entire sky darkening to claret and soft lilac.
‘My dear, no matter what happens next year, this summer must come to an end first. While King Henry
prays
, good rivers and valleys are taken back by those French whores … I’m sorry, Cecily. My anger soars at the thought of it.’
‘It is forgotten, but you will not teach our child such terms, I hope.’
‘Never. You are as fertile as a vineyard, my fine Neville bride,’ he said, reaching out and touching her belly for good luck. ‘How is the Neville clan?’
Cecily laughed, a light tinkling sound.
‘My nephew Richard is the one doing well, or so I’ve heard. He married the Beauchamp girl, if you remember? Shrewish little thing, but she seems to dote on him. Her brother is Earl Warwick and I’m told he is failing faster than the doctors can bleed him.’
‘The one without a son? I know him. I hope your nephew will still come to visit, Cecily. What is he now, eighteen, nineteen? Half my age and almost an earl!’
‘Oh,
he worships you, you know that. Even if he does inherit the earldom, he’ll still come to you for advice. My father always said Richard was the one with the wits, out of all the family.’
‘I’m sure he meant me,’ her husband said, smiling.
She tapped him on the forearm.
‘He didn’t mean you at all, Richard York. My brother’s son is the one with the wits.’
The duke looked out of the window. At thirty-four years old, he was strong and healthy, but he felt again the sense of creeping despair at the thought of a French army marching into view in the distance.
‘Perhaps you’re right, my dear. This Richard can hardly think his way past tomorrow, at least for the moment.’
‘You’ll beat them all, I’m certain. If I know you at all, I know you don’t lose easily – and you don’t give up. It’s a Neville trait as well. Our children will be terrors, I’m quite sure.’
He placed a cool hand along her jaw, feeling a surge of affection. Outside, the evening had come in shades of purple and grey. He reached out to gather her cloak closer around her.
‘I’ll come down with you,’ he said. ‘I don’t want you to fall on those steps.’
‘Thank you, Richard. I always feel safe with you.’
Margaret stood in the main yard of Saumur Castle, watching the man who had declared himself her protector teaching her brothers a thing or two about sword work. Her father was away to oversee the return of Anjou, busy with the thousand details of rents and estates he had won with the marriage of his daughter.
As she came back to Saumur on that first day, it had
seemed at first as if nothing had really changed. She was not properly a queen after the odd ceremony and England felt as far away as it had always been.
She watched Suffolk correcting little Louis as he overreached in a stroke.
‘Guard, boy! Where is your guard?’ Suffolk said, his voice booming back from the walls.
Margaret felt a wave of affection for the big English lord. Her father had returned briefly to Saumur after a week of riding with the king. Seeing his daughters, he’d told them gruffly to fetch their mother, giving orders with his old authority. The moment when Suffolk had stepped forward and cleared his throat had become one of the most cherished memories of her young life.
‘Milord Anjou,’ Suffolk had said. ‘I must remind you that Queen Margaret is no longer at your command. As her husband’s representative and champion, I must insist that she be treated with the dignity of her station.’
René of Anjou had gaped at the Englishman standing so solidly between them in his own courtyard. He’d opened his mouth to reply, then thought better of it, glaring around him until his gaze fastened on the unfortunate Yolande.
‘Fetch your mother, girl. I am weary and hungry and in no mood for such English games.’
Yolande had scurried away with her skirts held in bunches. Her father’s face had grown pink, his lower lip protruding like an offended mastiff as he walked on into his home. Duke René left again three days later and in that time he had not said another word to her, or her English lord.
Margaret blushed at the memory. It had been a moment of pure joy to see the white slug forced to back down. She did not doubt Suffolk in his willingness to defend her honour. The man took his duty as her protector very seriously
and she suspected his sword training with her brothers had a similar aim in mind.
She looked up at the clash of swords. Her three brothers were all faster than the English earl, but he was a veteran fighter, a man who had suffered wounds at Harfleur and been commander at the siege of Orléans. He knew more about fighting than John, Nicholas or Louis, and in fact he had fought them all together to demonstrate how armour could protect a man in a mêlée. Nonetheless, he was no longer young and Margaret could hear him panting as he blocked and struck against Louis’s shield.
The sword he carried was huge to Margaret’s eyes, four feet of solid steel that he held with both hands. The weapon looked clumsy, but Suffolk made it come alive, moving it in complicated patterns as if it weighed nothing. With the blade, all sign of the kindly English lord vanished. He became simply terrifying. Margaret watched in fascination as Suffolk made Louis defend stroke after stroke until her brother’s blade fell from nerveless fingers.
‘Ha! Work on your grip, lad,’ Suffolk said.
They were wearing thickly padded tunics and leggings under light armour segments for the practice. As Louis massaged his numb fingers, Suffolk pulled off his helmet and revealed a bright red face, streaming with sweat.
‘There is no better way to build your sword arm than by using the blade itself,’ Suffolk told her panting brother. ‘It has to feel light to you, as speed comes from strength. In some battles, the winning edge will come if you can break the two-handed grip at a crucial moment. John, step up for me to show your brother.’
Her brother John was fresh and he looked confident as he took his position, holding a blade upright while he waited for Suffolk to put his training helmet back on. It was a heavy
thing in itself, of iron lined with thick horsehair padding. The wearer had to breathe through a perforated grille, while his field of sight was reduced to a narrow strip trimmed in polished brass. Already overheated, Suffolk eyed the sweat-stained lining with distaste. He placed it carefully on the stones behind him.
‘Turn your right foot out a fraction more,’ he said to John. ‘You have to be in balance at every step, with your feet planted solidly. That’s it. Right foot to lunge. Ready?’
‘Ready, my lord,’ John replied.
He and Suffolk had fought a dozen times already, with the Englishman taking the honours. Yet John was improving and at seventeen he had great speed, even if he lacked the strength built by decades of swordplay.
John struck fast and Suffolk batted the blade away, chuckling. The blades clashed twice more and Margaret saw how Suffolk was always moving, his feet never still. John had a tendency to root himself to the ground and hack away, which meant Suffolk could increase the gap between them and draw him off balance.
‘There! Hold!’ Suffolk barked suddenly.
John’s sword had arced round at head height and Suffolk held it steady with an upright blade. For an instant, John was exposed across his chest. Her brother froze at the order, remaining in place.
‘You see, Louis? He is open. If I have the strength to take his blow with one hand, I can remove my left gauntlet from the hilt and strike with it. A punch will do.’ He demonstrated by touching his mailed fist to John’s helmet. ‘That will ring his bell for him, eh? Better still is a punch dagger, held in the fist with the blade between your knuckles. A punch blade will break his gorget if you hit it hard enough.’ To John’s discomfort, Suffolk showed Louis another blow to the exposed
throat. ‘Or even the eye slit of a helmet, though it’s hard to hit if he’s moving. It all comes back to the strength of your arm – and you must beware of him doing the same to you. Break your grip, John, and I’ll show you some defences against those strikes.’
Suffolk stood back as he spoke and saw that Margaret was watching. He took a pace towards her and dropped to one knee with his sword in front of him like an upright cross. Margaret felt herself flush even more deeply as her brothers witnessed it, but she could not escape a feeling of pride that this big man was hers to command.
‘My lady, I did not see you there,’ Suffolk said. ‘I hope I have not been neglecting my duties. I wanted to show your brothers some of the new techniques that have become popular in England.’