The Queen of Last Hopes (23 page)

I obeyed Exeter and joined my ladies in my chamber, where they were already packing. “Pack light!” hollered Exeter, looking in before racing off again. “Just take what you need for warmth.”

Marie stumbled in, half blind from crying. “He is making me leave,” she said, tears choking her voice. “He says that if they find me here, they might capture me because I am a Frenchwoman. Marguerite, he is dying! I do not want to leave.”

“You must, if he wills it, and he is probably right. Honor his last wishes. Go back and sit by him until it is time to go. We will get your things together.”

In a half hour we were all back in the great hall. Henry stood in the middle, looking scarcely less confused than Edward, who had been roused from a sound sleep and still was only half awake. Marie gave the Earl of Devon one last kiss, then another. “Go,” he whispered. Filled with those men who were too badly injured to flee with the rest of us, the great hall now looked like a hospital.

Somerset, sitting on a bench with his face in his hands, rose on command like a man sleepwalking and joined the sad parade out of the great hall. More out of instinct than out of conscious courtesy, he took my arm to help guide me in the darkness. “We should have entered London when we could,” I whispered, more to myself than to anyone else. “Christ, but I was a fool.”

Hal turned and looked straight at me. “Yes,” he said hoarsely, “we should have. And you were.”

I hung my head and wept.

Palm Sunday Field, they called it when they could bear to talk of it—that terrible battle near Towton on March 29, 1461, that cost us—and England—so dear. For hours upon hours Lancaster and York had hacked at each other in a blinding snow, blowing in the faces of our own men and keeping our archers from properly shooting their arrows.

Until almost the very end, though, it could have gone our way: we had more men, and none braver. No one had been more active in the battle than Somerset, even after Trollope had fallen near his feet. But then the Duke of Norfolk, whose illness had prevented him and his troops from reaching Edward’s side earlier, suddenly arrived at the head of hundreds of men, fresh for battle. Our men, exhausted from fighting for hours with a wind buffeting them, had not been able to withstand them.

The rout had been almost worse than the battle proper. As our men fled the field, some had plunged to their deaths into the River Wharfe; others had been slaughtered on its banks by the pursuing Yorkists. Men said that the river ran red with blood and that the snow turned crimson, that the bodies in the river were piled so high that they formed a footbridge over which the lucky could escape. When all was over, more than twenty thousand men lay dead. Edward executed forty prisoners immediately afterward, and when he arrived at York on March 30, he executed four more, including Marie’s husband, the Earl of Devon, who was barely able to walk to the scaffold.

I never saw any of the slaughter, of course. Yet I still dream of it regularly, and each year on March 29, I do not even attempt to sleep at night. I stay on my knees, praying for the men who died that day and for the widows and orphans they left behind.

***

It was to Newcastle that we fled after Towton. Fearing that the Earl of March—I am sorry, it still pains me to call him king—would send men after us, which he soon did, we tarried only a day or so before we moved on to Berwick. There we awaited a safe conduct to Scotland, which seemed our best hope for a refuge. Very soon a reply came, and by mid-April we were established in Linlithgow Palace, licking our wounds.

We were a ragtag group. In addition to Henry, Edward, Somerset, Exeter, William Vaux, and me, we had a few knights and clerks, Hal’s brother Lord Ros, and the Earl of Devon’s brother John—a great comfort to poor Marie, who would otherwise have been quite forlorn. Katherine Vaux had been waiting for us in Scotland, having added a newborn daughter, Jane, to our entourage.

Mary of Gueldres had sent instructions that we be entertained like visiting royalty instead of the almost penniless refugees we were. For the first couple of days at Linlithgow all of the members of our battered party, even the men, were content just to eat the good food we were provided and to sleep in the comfortable beds we were offered, secure in the knowledge that no Yorkist troops would come to drag us out of them. Henry, a heavy sleeper at the best of times, lay in his chamber like the dead, and I spent an untold time in a steaming bath, not coming out until my skin was shriveled.

“Your grace, Queen Mary is expected to arrive tomorrow,” Somerset said the third day of our stay there. I was standing by Loch Linlithgow, idly throwing bread to the ducks that had gathered around me expectantly.

“Oh?” I said stiffly.

“I imagine she is going to ask for Berwick.”

“Well, this comfort does not come without a price.” I glanced at the skirts of my new gown, made of material given to me by my Scottish hosts. “I suppose we will have no choice but to give it to her. If doing so makes me a fool, so be it.”

Hal took my hand, which I let lie limply within his. “Your grace, I have told you that I was half dead with exhaustion and grief that night, and did not know what I was saying. Many a man—many a wiser man than I—would have done the same thing you did and not enter London. Try to forgive me for my unkind words that night.”

“I have. It is myself I cannot forgive. If I could do it all over again…”

Somerset put his arm around me and held me close to him as we stared mournfully across the loch. After a while he said, “I never told you how Trollope died at Palm Sunday Field. He caught an arrow in the neck and was lying there helpless in that damnable snow, choking on his own blood. So I kept the promise we had made to each other when we fought our first battle together: that we would not allow the other to die in agony. I kissed and blessed him, and then I cut his throat, neatly and cleanly as I could. I do believe there was thankfulness in his eyes in the moment before he died.”

“Hal…”

“It was like cutting the throat of my own father.” Hal crossed himself with his free hand. “Give Berwick to Queen Mary, if that is what it takes for the Scots to provide us with men. Just don’t stand here full of self-blame and give up on our cause. We owe it to those who died on that miserable field, to Trollope and all of the rest.”

“Who said anything about giving up?” I snapped, pulling out of Somerset’s embrace and lobbing a piece of bread into a startled duck. “This very morning I dispatched a messenger to Pierre de Brézé, asking him to seize Jersey for us. It would certainly be of help.”

Hal grinned. “It certainly would. I apologize, madam. I’ve underestimated you. But what does the king think of it?”

“The king,” I said softly, “does what I wish now. He has put everything into my hands—and of those who advise me. Some might tell you that sort of power is gratifying; I am here to tell you that it is terrifying.”

***

Mary of Gueldres did indeed arrive the next day, bearing a gift of a hundred crowns and so smug a countenance, she might have already established her household at Berwick. I made a pretense of attempting to negotiate, to save my pride, but our hosts were in a vastly superior bargaining position, and they knew it. Had they chosen to do so, they could have taken us prisoner and turned us over to Edward of York, and that realization pervaded the negotiations like an unwanted dinner guest.

To my irritation, Mary’s big blondness made a distinct impression upon Somerset, and his own good looks did not escape her attention either. Even Henry noticed the attraction between the two. “I do hope that woman is not taking advantage of our poor Hal,” he said as Mary and Hal went off on one of their never-ending confabulations, all in the name of negotiation. “He is still very vulnerable after Towton.”

“Oh, I think he can handle himself,” I said dryly, rather wishing for a moment that Henry was a different sort of man so I could add, “and that she will handle him.” Nor could I mention my hope that Hal’s manly charms might lead to better terms, for Mary had not only hinted that Berwick might not be enough, she had also mentioned that King Edward, as she insisted on calling him, was making civil overtures toward Scotland.

“Perhaps Exeter should talk with her instead.”

“Exeter means well, but he lacks the temperament of a negotiator.” And, I added privately to myself, Mary did not find him the least bit attractive, at least beside Somerset.

“Well, you know best.” Henry, who was lying beside me, patted my hand. Even though we often slept together, we’d not made love since our reunion, and I was beginning to suspect that we probably never would again. I tried not to imagine what Hal and Mary of Gueldres might be up to, and tried even harder not to recall the feeling of Hal’s arm around me the other day.

Instead, I changed the subject. “We must think of something to do with Edward,” I said, referring not to the usurper but our son. “All of these travels of ours are making him quite wild.”

On April 25, we ceded the Scots Berwick, which to their delight we were able to turn over immediately, and Carlisle, which had to be taken. Soon afterward, our makeshift court moved to Edinburgh, at the Convent of the Dominican Friars. We did not have long to stroll the picturesque streets of Edinburgh, though, for we did not intend for the Earl of March to wear his crown in peace. In June, young Edward and I personally accompanied the Duke of Exeter to besiege Carlisle, while Henry himself took a group of men to Ryton and Brancepeth in June. Meanwhile, in May Pierre de Brézé had sent a fleet under the command of his cousin to capture Jersey.

John Neville, Warwick’s younger brother, raised our siege of Carlisle, giving me cause to regret having not executed him when I had the chance, while forces raised by the Bishop of Durham—who had once been my chancellor but like so many others had made their peace with March after Towton—repelled us at Brancepeth. Brézé’s fleet, however, took Jersey, and we still held a few castles in Wales, where Henry’s brother Jasper was still stirring up trouble on our behalf.

“We need more forces than we have available now,” I fretted after we had all gathered back in Edinburgh in varying degrees of disrepair. “I know Bishop Kennedy here in Scotland is our friend, but Queen Mary wavers”—I gave Somerset a significant look—“and I have heard that March is still trying for a truce.”

“And they have finally held his coronation,” Henry observed. “They say it was a magnificent ceremony.”

“I don’t want to hear a single detail,” I warned. “I think it is time we took another tack. When I came to this country, my uncle Charles urged me to do everything in my power to get my lord to cede Maine, and I did. No one in England has had a kind word to say of me ever since. So it is time, I think, that he did me a great service in return. We need men and we need money. He can supply us both.”

“So you plan to write to him?”

I shook my head. “He was very much impressed with my lord of Somerset when he was attempting to recover Calais. I would like him to go and ask my uncle in person. And to see what help the Count of Charolais can be to us.”

Hal nodded. “I’m willing.” He grinned. “Edinburgh is a bit gray for my taste.”

“And you, my lord?” I prompted my husband. “Do you approve of this mission?”

Henry nodded, just as I thought he would.

***

The evening before his departure, Hal caught me as I was strolling—or, to put it more accurately, pacing—around the convent grounds. “May I speak to you?”

“There is no need to be formal, Hal.”

“But you have been formal with me lately,
n’est-ce pas
?” I shrugged, and Somerset turned my face to his. “Is it the Queen Mother? You look disapproving whenever I speak to her in a friendly manner.”

I turned my head. “She is a widow, and you a single man. You can speak to each other as you please.”

“Yes, and that is all we do. Queen Mary and I are not lovers.”

“Really?” I said, ashamed of the girlish note that crept into my voice.

Hal, of course, caught my tone. “Really. We amuse each other, and I must say that I did offer to warm her bed, it being chilly in Scotland. But she is as annoyingly practical as she is amusing. She quite enjoys being the king’s regent, and she could hardly retain the position if she were to turn up pregnant with my child. So she very graciously refused.”

“But you spend so much time together—”

Hal shrugged. “What can I say? It is the Beaufort charm. She prefers me to her Scottish councillors, ’tis all.”

“Well, that is a relief to know. I would not like to see your bed sport harm our cause.” I started to turn away, but Hal caught me by the arm.

“Just our cause?” he asked softly. “I believe that you are a bit jealous of the Queen Mother, Margaret.”

“No! I—”

Hal drew me toward him and kissed me. For a moment, I gave myself up to the pleasure of having his lips against mine. Then Hal’s hands began to wander, and I pulled back. “It cannot be, Hal.”

“Margaret, I am fond of the king. I would do nothing to hurt him. But—”

“Then we will do nothing to hurt him.”

“Need he know? We need not risk getting you with child. There are other ways of giving—and getting—pleasure.”

I wondered fleetingly if Hal had tried this argument on Queen Mary. “I am aware of that, and they are just as wrong for a married woman and a queen to indulge in.”

“A married woman and a queen whose husband no longer touches her. I’m right, am I not?”

“That is none of your con—Yes, you are right.”

“Then why not give yourself a little pleasure? I promise, we will be discreet.”

“If I thought only to give myself a little pleasure, I would have fallen into your bed long before this.” Absently, I put my finger against my lips, warm from Hal’s kiss. “But don’t you understand? Surely you must have heard the rumors about your father and me, that he was my son’s father.”

“Yes.”

“He most certainly was not, if you have ever wondered. What do you think would happen if word got out that I was lying with you? For word would get out, you can count on it. Half of the men in Mary’s court want to align with the House of York, don’t you realize that? They would be more than delighted to pass along the rumor that I was moving from one Beaufort to the next, and that if one wasn’t the father of Edward, the other surely must be. Everything we have fought for—everything our men have died for—could be for naught, if enough could be convinced that my son were a bastard.”

“Yes, you must always think of your cause.”

“Hal, it is our cause, not just mine! Don’t be like this.”