"I am sorry you were concerned over my welfare, but I must retain my freedom of action. What I did not have was food. Will someone see to it?"
"My brother would like to speak to you, sire," Stanley added as Henry began to turn away. "The message came last night that he would await you at the great manor house in Atherstone."
"So? Poynings, go you ahead and say I come. My lord of Oxford, you, Rhys, and you, Sir Gilbert, move the army to Atherstone as soon as you may. Brandon, fetch me a fresh horse. The rest of you will attend me." Orders given, Henry began to laugh. "For mercy, have none of you a crust of bread nor a sup of ale to give me? I am famished."
The food was soon brought, but instead of leaving immediately Henry decided to shed the armor that had not been off his back for twenty-four hours so that he would present a less disheveled appearance. He was washed and shaved while the armor was repolished and, by the time he left, the main body of his army was underway. They had not far outstripped the men when Guildford's keen eyes noted a troop moving toward them at a good rate.
"Back," Jasper said. "We may meet our advance guard before they can overtake us."
Henry wheeled his horse, then reined in. "Wait. It is common knowledge that the army camped at Lichfield and there are scarce a hundred men in that troop. How could any man know we set off separately?"
"Stanley knew," Brandon muttered as he set his lance and loosened the battle-ax fastened to his saddle.
A qualm seized Henry, but it was too late now—they had been spotted. The suspense did not last long as two knights pulled ahead, came up, and inquired of the whereabouts of Richmond's army.
"Who are you?"
"Sir Thomas Bourchier. We and our men are from London. We rode north with the constable of the Tower who was summoned to Leicester by Richard, but we broke away—"
"I am Sir Walter Hungerford. I knew the little princes when they lived in the Tower."
"You have found Henry of Richmond himself." Henry lifted his visor so that they could see his face. "I bid you welcome." He stretched a hand toward Hungerford whose face was bitter between the conflict of his Yorkist loyalty and his hatred for the princes' murderer. "Be at peace. When I am crowned, there will be no more murdering of babes—no matter what their blood. The army is behind us. Seek out the earl of Oxford."
"Even wolves do not tear the flesh of their litter mates' cubs," Jasper snarled.
"Ay, uncle, but a boar sometimes eats its own piglets, which is why, for all their fierceness and courage we do not honor the pig. The boar that devoured the piglets of England must die. Come. I grow ever more eager to meet my stepfather."
That was true, but largely in a negative sense. Henry understood ambition all too well, but that his mother should mate with a counterpart of William Stanley… For me, he reminded himself as he dismounted and walked toward the door opened for him. If he is a beast, she has soiled herself for me.
In the hall his breath trickled out in a long sigh, making him conscious that he had been holding it. His lady mother had not chosen so ill. Weakness, ambition, and passion marked the face before him, but not the sly evil that dehumanized his brother. Lord Stanley offered to kneel, and Henry caught him.
"A father may not kneel to a son, not even if the son be king."
"Sire, I—"
Henry made an impatient gesture. "My mother," he said, his breath quickening with eagerness. "How is she? Where is she?"
A softness redeemed Lord Stanley's expression. "Well. She is well, only very much alarmed over your welfare."
"Where?"
"Near London. She would have come. She desired it greatly. I had to lock her in her room and give order that she be held most straitly. If all goes well, you will be soon enough in each other's arms. Sire …"
"Call me Henry. You have that right. Why should she not come? I want her."
"Do you not understand how much your mother loves you? Do you not know what she would suffer if she saw you thus—armed, prepared for battle, for wounds, for … I wished to spare her that. Do you wish her to endure it? She, who can barely give order to beat an erring maid or man?"
For death, Lord Stanley had not said, but he had thought it. Henry dragged his mind away from the unbearable urge to rest in Margaret's arms, to be a child with no fears and no burdens. He nodded acceptance and sat down.
"I am happy, at least, that you care so much for her."
"Who does not?" Stanley smiled. "Her beauty and goodness would convert the Devil."
"Stop," Henry said sharply. "You whet my appetite for what I cannot yet have. Let us speak instead of how I can come to her safely."
Lord Stanley's eyes shifted like a hunted thing. "I, too, have a son," he faltered, "dearly beloved to me. And he is in Richard's hands, close-prisoned, a hostage. Will you call me a coward if I say I am afraid to do what I desire? You, too, will have sons. I pray your heart is not torn apart between their needs."
"Then you are come here to tell me you will fight for Gloucester?"
"No!" Stanley swallowed. "You must believe me, sire—Henry—you must. I am trying to free my boy. I have been trying—" He bit his lip. "The moment, the instant, I know him to be safe, either because he has escaped or because he is too far from Gloucester to be harmed, my men will join you."
"If you wait for that, you are like to be too late," Henry said coldly. "Gloucester's forces are assembled. I doubt not we will meet within the next day or two. Certainly I intend to press for a meeting."
A bead of sweat ran down Stanley's temple. "My forces are mustered. They lie to the south. We will march parallel to you. As God is my judge, when battle is joined I will ride to your support. If I had another child here, I would give it to you in pledge."
Henry’s expression froze. "I do not murder children for a father's fault,” he said softly. “Both reward and punishment are for the doer, not the innocent, without power." He rose. "I have business. Farewell until we meet in victory."
"Sire!" Lord Stanley caught at Henry's arm, and Brandon moved closer, sword half-drawn. Henry gestured impatiently and Brandon drew back. "I love your mother," Stanley whispered. "Do you realize that if I do not keep my word I will not dare enter her chamber nor ride her lands without the fear of a knife in my back or my belly? I will not be able to trust my own priest—so does she bind men to her. If my life could settle the matter, I would spend it. You are not a murderer of innocents, but Gloucester is! I cannot kill my own son—I cannot."
Quite abruptly Lady Margaret stopped in the middle of a phrase and looked down at her hands, so tightly clasped that the knuckles showed white. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. What she had been doing must be an offense to God. For the last hour? hours? she had been mouthing the words of prayers without knowing in the least what they meant, nor even which prayers she had been reciting. She opened her eyes and raised them to the crucifix that hung above the
prie-dieu.
"Forgive me," she whispered. "Your Mother would forgive me."
And then, bitterly, Margaret wondered whether that were true. Holy Mary had not driven her son with her own ambition. Submission to the will of God did not include cajoling a loving and trusting husband into endangering the life of his own son for the advantage of yours. Advantage? What advantage? Would Henry not be in worse danger of his life and his soul as king than in any other state? Margaret tried to moisten her lips, but her mouth was dry as ashes. Her pride! Her sin! And every person who had ever loved her would suffer for it.
The dowager queen of England licked her lips with a wet, pink tongue like a satisfied cat. Soon now, very soon, she would sit in state again, fully acknowledged as royalty twice over. Dowager queen and queen mother both, her position would be unassailable. All in all, this was better, perhaps, than if her son had mounted the throne. Little Edward had always had a mind of his own, even as a small boy. Elizabeth would be much easier to control, and neither the upstart Tudor nor the murderous Gloucester would be able to deny his queen anything. Too much of Edward's blood had been spilled. Another drop and the commons and nobles of England would set Elizabeth herself up as queen.
That thought made the dowager lick her lips again. That might be the end of the matter in any case. If things were maneuvered just so, it might be possible to rid the country of the hated Gloucester and leave his queen-wife, who was also heir to the dearly beloved Edward IV, as ruler in her own name. Her name and my power, the dowager thought, savoring the concept.
Best of all, it made not the slightest difference who won the battle that was now being drawn up. So long as one of the creatures died, it made not a pin of difference which. They both needed Elizabeth in order to hold the throne, Gloucester because the country hated him and the Tudor because he was only an upstart Welshman, a commoner in fact, with no more legitimate claim to royal honors than the serving man his grandfather had been. A slow smile curved the dowager's lips. Even if both died, it would not matter. Either Elizabeth would be named queen directly or Warwick would be crowned—and Warwick was feeble-minded. He would have to be married to Elizabeth for any kind of security. Thus, I will rule through Elizabeth just the same, she thought happily. The battle and the news of its results, whatever they were, could not come too soon for the dowager.
In the isolated manor house at Sheriff Hutton, where Elizabeth dragged out the weary days, no word of any impending battle was spoken. Nonetheless, the princess knew that something of great importance was about to happen. The women, whose manners had bordered on insolence ever since she had been imprisoned here, had suddenly changed. They now vied for the opportunity to perform any service for her, and their behavior and speech were fawning.
For a little while after she noticed this change, Elizabeth was almost paralyzed with fear. She believed that it portended Gloucester's arrival with a proposal of marriage, perhaps even with a dispensation from the pope for the marriage. Could the pope, the voice of God upon earth, set aside the sin of incest? A niece and an uncle? Elizabeth's gorge rose. Cousins, yes, that was not a great matter, but the brother and the daughter of the same man? She would resist, she promised herself; her mother could not force her to obey in this case. She would go to a convent, even die, but she would not marry the king.
But as the days passed and neither her uncle nor any message from him came, Elizabeth remembered the last part of Lady Margaret's message. "He who loves us both comes soon." If the ladies feared that the rebellion under Henry of Richmond would succeed and Henry would be king, there was far more reason for them to fawn upon her. They were, after all, Richard's creatures, and she might be able to protect them from Henry.
Her mind slipped from that to something more important to her. "He who loves us both—" Dared she believe that true? Elizabeth wondered. She had often thought of Henry of Richmond in these long, dull months, often thought of how it would be to receive letters such as Margaret had from him. They were marvelous letters, including, among other, more serious matters, gay little incidents poking fun at himself. Once, obviously in reply to his mother's question about how he looked or whether he had changed, he had said that nothing could change or improve him; he was the same, only more so, he said and cited a barber who had refused to trim his hair as short as he wanted it because "it were better that what it hides remain hidden."
Elizabeth sighed and choked down a hope that Henry would love her. She had laughed so heartily at that tale of the barber. Lady Margaret was a darling, but she had no sense of humor. She had not thought it funny; she had been angry at the insult to her son even though she freely admitted that he was no beauty. But obviously Henry had thought it funny. So he and I would laugh at the same sort of things, Elizabeth thought. Suddenly she began to sob softly. It would be like heaven to have someone to laugh with. Her father had laughed so easily and so often with her. Since his death she had so seldom laughed. Henry's letters ... She had laughed at them. But not his letters to me, Elizabeth reminded herself.
She tried to remember what Henry had written to her, but there was really nothing to remember. The phrases were as proper and polite as the rote speeches she had memorized for certain court situations. How could he love her or she him? Nearly thirty years of bloodshed divided them, and every friend of Henry of Richmond had hated her and her house.
The warm, soft breeze of summer stirred the leaves, and they whispered softly. But for a princess there could be no soft whispers of love. Desperately Elizabeth tried to gird her spirit with pride. She would need it to deny Richard and possibly to die if the king defeated Henry. And if Henry won, she would need the pride to live with, to uphold her through the lonely years so that Edward IV's grandson could sit on the throne.
CHAPTER 9
The morning mists of a fair, warm August day were clearing slowly. Henry Tudor looked about and sighed softly with mingled nervousness and satisfaction. He was glad it did not rain. He did not like to be wet. The thought brought a smile to his lips. If one must soon be dead, it was better not to be uncomfortable first. He began to laugh softly. Also, if one was to be king, it would be most undignified to accept the crown with a sniffling nose and running eyes, and his colds were always of that unappealing type.
King. Would he be king? Below and to the right of the slight eminence on which his horse stood, surrounded by his council and a band of about one hundred of the most fanatically devoted of the English exiles, lay the main body of his army under Oxford. To the right again was a small group of reserves that Sir Gilbert Talbot commanded, and directly below Henry another small reserve force under Sir John Savage. Left again and almost out of sight were William Stanley's forces, about two thousand mounted men. Sir William had offered to fight in the main body, but Henry had not dared accept. If that snake retreated, the entire force would have been thrown into confusion.