King Henry’s face darkened, the flush of blood to his cheeks standing out like a banner against the white skin.
‘That much I can change today. Where is my Seal, that I may sign an order for his release?’
The king’s steward chose that moment to speak, his own eyes still bright with moisture from being witness to the king’s waking.
‘Your Grace, the Duke of York has the Royal Seal, in London.’
Henry staggered slightly, stretching out his hand to the bedpost. His arm was too weak to hold him and gave way, so that he sat hard on the bed. His doctors reacted with febrile excitement, murmuring all the time on his colour and his disposition, the sound like a drone of bees around the king. Doctor Fauceby reached once more for the king’s neck to check the strength of his heart’s spasms, only to have Henry slap his hand away.
‘By Christ, I am as weak as a
child
,’ Henry snapped, his colour deepening in embarrassment and anger. ‘Very well. I will see my son and the servants will dress me. Then I will ride to London to put York out of my place. Now help me up again, one of you. I want to be standing when I see my son for the first time.’
‘Your Highness, this is the crisis,’ Hatclyf said as firmly as he could. ‘I must recommend you rest.’
The physician was trembling, Margaret realized. For more than a year, Henry had been little more than a pale body to be washed and clothed, tapped and measured like a blind calf. The men around King Henry were intimately familiar with his flesh, but they knew the man not at all. She wondered if she did herself.
Margaret watched as Fauceby exchanged a glance with Hatclyf. Both doctors had a monkish air, all thin fingers and sunken cheeks. Yet Fauceby was the more senior, and when he spoke his voice was firm and low.
‘Your Highness, my colleague is correct. You have been very ill for a long time. You are sweating, a sign that your liver and tripes are still weak. If you excite yourself, you risk collapse, a return of the sickness. You should rest now, Your Highness, in normal sleep. Hatclyf and I will prepare a broth of dark cabbage, sowbread and wormwood for when you wake again, with your permission. It will purge and restore your humours, so that your recovery will be more lasting.’
Henry considered, looking aside as he judged his own strength. He was appalled at the weakness that beset him, but if he had judged the lost time correctly, he was thirty-three years old. The realization that he was the same age as Christ at his crucifixion hardened his will. He had woken on Christmas Day, at the age of Christ at his death. It was a sign, he was certain. He would not wilt, or spend one more moment in his sickbed, no matter what it cost him.
‘No,’ he said. ‘You two there. Help me stand.’
The two yeomen servants responded instantly. They took Henry under his outstretched arms and lifted him to his feet once more, shuffling back with bowed heads as Henry found his balance on trembling legs. They could all hear footsteps coming closer and the wet nurse entered the room at that moment, struggling to curtsey and hold up the baby prince at the same time. She did not let her eyes settle on King Henry while he still stood in his nightclothes.
‘Bring him here,’ the king said, his smile unforced. He took the child and held him up, though his arms shuddered with the effort.
Margaret put a hand over her mouth, trying not to sob in relief and joy.
‘You,’ Henry said to the tiny boy looking down at him. ‘By God, I see you, my own son. My
son
.’
7
King Henry felt himself shivering as he reached the sweeping curve of the River Thames. Though he could see the Palace of Westminster, he was still half a mile west of the city of London. It was said the two parts crept closer each year as merchants built workshops and storehouses on cheap land in range of the London markets – and the city grew beyond its Roman walls.
The darkness only increased the horrible, biting cold. The wind brought a spatter of frozen hail as the sun set, but the weakness the king felt was all his own. Henry was appalled at how feeble he had become, so wasted of limb that barely twenty miles on horseback had reduced him to a gasping mass of aches, with sweat pouring from him under his armour. He thought at times that only the iron kept him from falling.
He had not intended to ride to the Palace of Westminster in procession, but there had been almost forty loyal lords in attendance in Windsor. As word spread that the king had risen from his bed and intended to ride to London, they’d begun to cheer and stamp, the noise growing and swelling throughout the castle until it reached the town outside and was doubled and redoubled on a thousand throats, until it became a great bellow to match the winter gales.
Before he’d left, King Henry had endured the Christmas service in St George’s chapel, sitting pale and still as all those present gave thanks to God for his deliverance. The great feast waiting for them had been pillaged by passing men, excitedly summoning horses and servants to join the king as he set forth. The winter sun had already been sitting low in a red sky by the time Henry took to the road with more than a hundred men, all armed and armoured, with the royal lion banners fluttering on the freezing wind.
The Palace of Westminster had been built upstream of the city, away from the foul miasmas that brought disease each summer. Henry took the road that followed the banks of the river, with Buckingham on one side, Earl Percy on the other and Derry Brewer following with the rest in serried ranks behind. By then, the king was walking his horse to eke out his strength. It had already taken five hours or more to ride the miles from Windsor, and Henry was worried his will had taken him beyond the strength of his body. He knew if he fainted and fell, it would be a blow to his standing from which he might never recover. Yet Somerset was still imprisoned by York’s order. Henry knew that if he tarried too long, the earl might be made to vanish. Even without that concern, he wanted his Royal Seal from York. He had no choice but to push on and ignore the fluttering heart in his chest as well as the pain in every joint and sinew. He could not recall such physical exhaustion before, but he reminded himself over and over that Christ had fallen three times on his way to Calvary. He would not fall, he told himself, or if he did, he would rise and mount and go on.
With Westminster in sight, Henry could feel the expectations of those riding at his back, the weight of faith from all those who had been shoved aside by York’s favourites over the previous year. Their complaints against Nevilles had gone unheard, their cases in law dismissed by judges in the pay of the Protector. Yet the king had woken and they were jubilant, almost drunk on it. It helped that villages around London emptied out on to the road to see Henry pass. They left their Christmas meals and services to stand and cheer, recognizing the banners and understanding the king had returned at last to the world. Hundreds ran alongside where there was room, trying to keep the monarch in sight, while Henry only wanted to rest. His legs were shaking inside the armour and more than once he reached up to wipe itching sweat from his eyes only to have the gauntlet scrape noisily against the iron.
He had thought at first that he would enter the city and cross to the Tower to free Somerset from his imprisonment. Shuddering pain made him reconsider, so that the Palace of Westminster became the only place he could reach that night. He prayed to God as he went that he would be able to recover there, at least for a time.
Henry rode in, between the royal palace and Westminster Abbey, bringing his horse around in a tight circle to dismount. Buckingham sensed his king was close to collapse and jumped down from his own saddle to stand by Henry, shielding him from staring eyes as best he could. Henry leaned forward and struggled to the ground, standing for a moment with his gauntlets still on the saddle-horn until he was sure his legs would take his weight. Royal heralds blew long notes across the yard, though there were already men running to carry the news of the king’s arrival, shouting it as they went.
Henry stood upright, feeling he had the strength. He reached out and rested his hand on Buckingham’s shoulder for just a heartbeat.
‘Thank you, Humphrey. If you lead me in, I would have my Seal brought to my hand.’
Buckingham’s chest swelled, making his armour creak. On impulse, he knelt. Earl Percy was in the process of dismounting, tossing the reins to one of the men he had brought with him. Though the wind was bitter and the old man’s knees protested, he too sank slowly to the cobbles, clasping his furs around his shoulders. All around them, the noblemen and knights did the same until only Henry remained standing. He took a sharp breath, looking over their heads to the great door into the Palace of Westminster.
It had been too long.
‘Rise, gentlemen. It’s too cold to stand here in the dark. Lead me in, Buckingham. Lead me in.’
Buckingham rose with joy written on his face, striding forward. The rest followed Henry like a regiment in his wake, ready for anything.
Henry could have blessed his armour as he walked down the long central corridor of the Palace of Westminster. The weight surely sapped his strength, but it gave him bulk, making him appear the man he might have been. The palace staff were red-eyed with weeping at his recovery, striding ahead to lead the king’s party to the royal apartments, where York was in residence. At least the Protector had not been off somewhere in the north, though that would have made some aspects of the day easier. The Seal was no more than two pieces of silver in a bag and a chest, but no royal proclamation or new law could be made without it. For all it was a mere symbol, whoever held the Seal held some semblance of power in the land.
It was a little warmer out of the wind, though the Palace of Westminster was a cold, damp place at the best of times. Henry was still sweating from his ride, walking bare-headed in clanking plate down the long route to his rooms overlooking the river. As he went, he struggled to find the right words to say to the Protector and Defender of his realm. He knew by then that Richard Plantagenet had not ruined the kingdom, that he had not beggared her with a war. From the comments of his lords, it seemed York had not suffered rebellions or riots, or much of anything, while Henry drowsed and dreamed in Windsor. It was difficult to explain why such news had kindled anger in the king, but that emotion too had its uses, whatever the cause. He would not allow himself to falter until he had dismissed the man who ruled in his name.
After climbing a long flight of stairs, Henry was forced to stop and pant, waiting for his shaking muscles to recover. In part to conceal his need to rest, he gave orders for Buckingham to have fast riders ready to take an order for Somerset’s release to the Tower, the moment the Seal was in his hands. Instructions to fetch the keepers of the Seal from their rooms were passed back down the crowd of men accompanying their king.
Henry’s mouth was dry. He touched his throat and coughed, then accepted a flask from Derry Brewer as the spymaster held it out without a word. The king turned red and choked as he discovered it was whisky. Derry tilted his head in amusement, smiling wryly.
‘Better than water. It will give you strength, Your Highness,’ he said.
King Henry almost snapped an angry reply at him, then decided it was having an effect, so took another swig before passing it back. The ‘water of life’, they called it in some places. He could feel its warmth spreading.
Another long set of steps brought him on to the floor of his own rooms. Henry picked up the pace then as servants opened doors ahead. He could remember the trial of poor Suffolk in that place, William de la Pole, who had been condemned to banishment and then murdered at sea as he left England. Such events were glimpsed through gauze in his mind, the memories of a different man almost, one who was drowning even then. As he went through, Henry realized his mind was clear, as if the smothering cloth had been ripped into tatters. The thought of losing himself once more was a dull and chilling horror, as a sailor who had been cast out of the sea might look back at dark waves still tugging at his feet.
‘God grant me the will,’ Henry muttered as he entered the room, his gaze falling on the two men who were already standing to greet him.
Richard of York had grown a little heavier in the time since King Henry had last seen him, losing the last traces of the lithe young man he had once been. He was clean-shaven and black-haired, his strength showing in wide shoulders and a thick-muscled waist. Richard, Earl of Salisbury, was older than York by a generation, though he remained wiry, a Borders man, with a healthy bloom of colour in his cheeks. Henry saw Salisbury’s expression darken as he caught sight of Earl Percy, but then both York and Salisbury dropped to one knee, their heads bowed.
‘Your Highness, I am overjoyed to see you well,’ York said as Henry gestured for them to rise. ‘I have prayed for this day and I will give thanks in all the churches on my lands.’
The king glared at him, realizing that part of his anger was that the man had been too skilled at the position he had won for himself. It was surely beneath him to find fault with either York or his chancellor, but then Henry recalled Somerset, held for trial and execution on York’s orders. His will firmed. Spite of any kind was unfamiliar to him but, for just a moment, he revelled in the advantage of his position.
‘Richard, Duke of York, I have ordered the Royal Seal brought to this room,’ Henry said. ‘You will pass it into my hands. When you have done so, you are dismissed as Protector and Defender of the Realm. Your chancellor, Richard, Earl Salisbury, is dismissed from that post. By my order, those you have bound will be freed. Those you have freed will be bound!’
York went pale as he felt the lash of the king’s anger.
‘Your Highness, I have acted only in the interest of the country, while you …’ He chose his words carefully, to remove all insult. ‘While you were ill. Your Majesty, my loyalty, my faith is absolute.’ He looked up from under lowered brows, trying to judge the differences in the man who stared so coldly around him. The Henry he had known had been weak in thought and body, a man with no desires of his own beyond a love of prayer and silence. Yet the king standing before him seemed stronger in will, though he was white as candlewax.