She murmured a greeting to the guards at Henry’s door, slipping inside and passing through the outer chambers. The only noise was the swish of her dress and the soft tapping of her leather shoes on the stones.
‘Who is there?’ Henry called out from within.
Margaret smiled wearily at hearing his voice. It was a good day if he was awake and alert. King Henry slept for extraordinary lengths of time and could easily be senseless for an entire day. His few waking hours were often spent in the chapel, with his hands clasped tight before him. Weeks or months could pass with barely a spark of life beyond those movements, with food and drink chewed without recognition and his eyes blank. The better times came slowly, like a man waking from deep slumber. She had lost count of the occasions when his energy had returned and given her hope, only to fade once more. On any given day, she might find him dressed and vital, talking animatedly about their plans. Such episodes of recovery lasted a day, or a week, or even a month before the stupor would drag him back and he would once again drown and be lost. She never knew what she would find each night.
She still mourned the loss of her love for him. It had not vanished in a single night and there were times when she felt embers of affection amidst the colder sadness. She had been a mother to him more than a wife, for as long as she could remember. Perhaps that was the heart of it. Like so much else, her love for Henry had been allowed to drain away over the years, dragged out thread by clawed thread, until she was empty. The strange thing was that it did not matter. Whether she was a mother or a wife to him, she knew she would not rest until his enemies were cold and in the ground. York had left her with nothing else and she blamed that man for plunging Henry’s head under the waters once again. When she recalled the way Henry had been before St Albans, the brightness and promise in his eyes then, her heart would break anew. He had been given a chance to live, to be alive – and York had stolen it from him, holding him under in his grief until he was gone.
‘It is I, Henry,’ she said. ‘Margaret.’
To her surprise, he was sitting up in bed with books and papers spilled carelessly around him.
‘I heard men’s voices, earlier. I wanted to rise and go out to them, but …’ He shook his head, unable to explain the lethargy that stole away his will and made the simplest task take an age.
Margaret swept her skirts under her and sat at his side, looking over the papers around him on the coverlet. He saw her interest and waved a hand over them.
‘Bills of Attainder, my dear. And the Great Charter, by my foot. I had them brought to me, though I do not recall asking for them.’
Margaret covered her irritation by gathering them up. She vowed to chastise whichever servant had brought the documents to her husband. In conditions of strict secrecy, she had ordered a huge number of papers sent from the archives in London, hiding the ones she really wanted in hundreds of others. Then at the last, the final, vital packets had been given into Henry’s hands instead of her own.
‘I asked for them, Henry. I did not want you to be troubled with mere papers, when you are still unwell.’
‘No, they caught my interest!’ he said brightly. ‘I have spent the day reading them. These Writs of Attainder make stories of horror, my dear. I shiver still at what they brought about. Have you read the execution records of the Despensers? The father was cut into pieces and eaten by dogs, the son –’
‘I do not wish to hear it, Henry,’ Margaret replied. ‘I’m sure they deserved whatever fates befell them, if they stood against their rightful king.’
‘I think they stood with him, Margaret. The Despensers supported the second King Edward, but after the Attainder was issued against them, the son was dragged, then his flesh was knife-carved with verses against sin, then –’
‘Henry, please! No more. You make me shiver to hear such things. You should rest, not inflame your thoughts with terrible imaginings. How will you sleep now, with such pictures in your mind’s eye?’
The king looked crestfallen.
‘As you say, Margaret. I’m sorry. I did not mean to distress you. I will put them aside.’
Margaret continued to gather up the papers in a great sheaf, tucking them under one arm. One of the bundles was held by an old iron clasp and it snagged her finger, making her hiss in pain. Red drops of blood spilled from the tip and she heard her husband take a sharp breath, distressed as he looked away. She sucked the finger, angry with herself as she saw a single red spot remain on the white coverlet. After St Albans, her husband had developed a terror of seeing blood. He had not yet noticed the mark, but when he did, he would not sleep again.
Taking the papers with her, Margaret rummaged in the chest at the foot of his bed and pulled out blankets and another cover, quilted and thick against the cold.
‘Lie still, love,’ she said, moving with quick efficiency. She threw off his layers and replaced them, glimpsing his bare legs beneath his shift. Henry settled down, the lines of tension leaving his face. He yawned as Margaret sat once more to stroke his brow.
‘You see? You have made yourself weary,’ she said.
‘You will not take the light though, Margaret? I do not like waking in the dark.’
‘I will leave it here, by your bed. Your servants are always within call.’
She continued to smooth his forehead, and his eyes closed.
‘I love you, Margaret,’ he murmured.
‘I know,’ she said. For no reason at all, her eyes filled with tears.
When his breathing was steady and she was sure he was asleep, the queen took the papers to another room, where she brought a lamp close to a table and sat to peruse the fate of the Despenser family and the result of the Bill of Attainder issued against them. When she read the vital document had been ordered by a French queen come to England to marry Edward the second, Margaret sat up straight. History had lessons to teach and she could almost hear the voice of her countrywoman a century before. Margaret didn’t move from that spot, rapt and fascinated, until the sun rose.
19
Salisbury rubbed his freshly shaven face with a cold, wet cloth, closing the pores and easing the sting of Rankin’s razor. He had made no bets with his retainer that morning, instead enduring the scraping in perfect silence until he could rise and dismiss his servant. At sixty, Richard Neville was feeling his years. He spent an hour of each morning in sweat-soaked exercise, keeping his sword arm strong and his joints supple. He had never been a heavy man and though the skin of his jowls sagged in sharp creases, there was as yet no fat to make them plump. Even so, age was the great weakener, no matter how he worked to stall its progress. There had been a time when every decision was clear and he could see far, knowing exactly what he wanted and how best to bring it about. He could only shake his head in memory of that youthful clarity. Life had been simpler, once, when his task had been to keep his family strong and spread the Neville bloodline throughout the noble houses of England.
His wife, Alice, came bustling into the room as Rankin scurried out, taking in her husband’s mood as she placed a bowl of fresh apples on a dresser. Middleham Castle was blessed with fine orchards and the cider made there was good enough to be sold. It was typical of her husband that he did not do so, allowing his servants to age barrels of it in the castle basements for their own pleasure.
Alice watched as Salisbury finished wiping his face and neck. She could see he was distracted, looking around vaguely for a place to put the cloth, until she approached and took it from him.
‘You look troubled,’ she said, reaching out and touching him on the arm. They had been married for almost forty years and grown old together in what he called the ‘gentle harness’. It was a phrase he had used many times to amuse her, one of many he would utter just to see her smile. The humour may have been lost over the years, but the memory of it and the affection remained.
‘Is it any wonder, with such things to trouble me?’ Salisbury muttered. Standing by the window, he could see the golden farmland around Middleham, stretching to the horizon and populated by small figures of men and women and horses, cutting and gathering sheaves of golden wheat on the earl’s fields. On another day, the sight might have brought him pleasure, an image of the world working as it should, with men drawing goodness from the earth and looking forward to a flagon of ale as the sun set. As the first touches of autumn bronzed the trees, he stared through it all and much further.
There was no need for Alice to wonder at the source of her husband’s strain. Ever since the messenger had arrived two days before, the castle had been in an uproar, with a dozen other men going out on fast horses to call in knights and men-at-arms, wherever they laid their heads.
‘Richard of York is my oathsworn lord,’ Salisbury said. He spoke almost to himself, though he turned his head and touched his wife’s cheek. ‘I raised him up, close enough to take the throne. And at the end, he did not reach for it. If he had, there would be no threat to us now, no whispers of this Attainder that could destroy us all. Damn his indecision, Alice! How many times must a man be given a crown before he closes his hand on it? York could have made himself king at St Albans and that would have been the end. He was too meek, or too cowed with the walls of an abbey all around him. Now? Four years have passed in peace and all we have gained is to let the king grow strong once again – or rather, to allow his queen to tighten her grip. And now this! The house of York shaken to its foundations by the king’s own Seal and I have
no
choice, Alice! No choice at all. I must take the field once again. I must take arms and risk everything I have made, when it should have been settled long ago.’
‘You will not fail, Richard,’ Alice said firmly. ‘You never have. In all your dealings, the Nevilles have prospered, by your hand and your wits. You have been a fine shepherd to them all – aye, and to others who do not have our name. You said yourself you have raised more soldiers than any other house could bear. You have not been idle in the years of peace! Take heart from that, from the foresight that made you bring so many to your banners while other men drowsed!’
Salisbury grunted, pleased that his wife would say such things to him. He had never been a boastful man, but he enjoyed her appreciation of his skills, even if such things were said only in private.
‘My father told me never to fight the same battle twice, Alice. He warned me that if I won, I should be sure to crush my enemies so completely they could never rise again.’
‘And if you lost?’ she asked.
Salisbury smiled in memory.
‘I asked the same question. He said if I lost, I placed my fate in the hands of other men. The answer was always
not
to lose.’ He sighed then, shaking his head. ‘Yet here I am, bound to support York in war, where a single blow or arrow can end it all. I am too old for this, Alice. I feel it in my stiff joints, in my slow thoughts. It is a path for younger men to walk. I would rather stay here in peace and watch the crops gathered in.’
Alice knew her husband well enough to choose her words carefully, prodding his vanity to bring him out of his sombre mood.
‘Perhaps, then, you should let our son command the men. Have you news of Richard coming back from Calais? If he were here, you know he would not refuse, love. He would carry the Neville banners, with those of Warwick.’
Alice watched her husband’s jaw clench, his gaze sharpening.
‘He is a fine commander,’ he said. ‘My heart swells when I think of how he led his men at St Albans.’
‘And yours, love. They followed him when he blew the horns. You have told me how well he looked in his red.’
Salisbury chewed his lower lip at that memory, his chin jutting out a fraction as he raised his head.
‘Yet he is young, still – and perhaps not yet cunning enough in his youth,’ he said.
Alice hid her smile as she nodded.
‘And he has spent three years in France, while I have kept my eye on all the whisperings of this Lancaster court. No, I should command, Alice. Warwick will have his time, not long from now. He did not come to me with news of these Queen’s Gallants marching and training. These King’s Gallants riding through the north and gathering bows and pikes and clubs of iron. Where would we be without the men I pay to pass on such things to me? Lost, Alice. God knows whether the king will ever leave his bed now. I have no one in Kenilworth to tell me how he fares, not for a year. Two strong young men both killed in accidents? Young John Donnell found hanged by his own hand, when I knew him for a cheery soul with no dark moods at all? Sir Hugh Sarrow found dead in a house of ill-repute? It was passing strange for a man to take such a cut in his bed, Alice. I knew two years back that I had to gather knights and men-at-arms, no matter the ruinous cost. They tried to pluck out my eyes. Yet I knew. If they would have me blind, there had to be something they did not want me to see. No, it is the queen, that she-wolf, behind this threat, not Henry. That poor, broken man is at her mercy – and the mercy of her courtiers and council. I do not doubt the Percy sons still smart at the loss of their father. They have planned for this – and
I
must answer them, or see my life’s work thrown on to the fire.’
‘Very well, Richard,’ Alice said. ‘I am pleased to hear you say it. You will keep our son safe, I hope?’
‘As best I can,’ he replied. ‘God willing, we will make an end.’ He dipped his head a fraction, so that shadows played across his eyes. ‘I tell you, Alice, if Henry must fall, I will not shrink from it, as York did. Not with my house and titles in peril. I will strike the blow to finish this war of whispers and secrets. For if York is broken, Salisbury will be next – and then Warwick. One Attainder will lead to others and we will be scorched out of England. I would die first, before I allow that.’
‘Old fox,’ she said, stepping into his embrace so that he folded his arms around her and rested his chin on the top of her head. ‘Come back safe to me, when it is done. That is all I ask.’