The Red Queen Read online

  Then, in July, everything my husband had warned about the Calais garrison becomes terribly true, as York launches a fleet, lands in Sandwich, halfway to London, and marches on the capital city, without a shot being fired against him, without a door slammed shut. God forgive the men of London, they fling open the gates for him and he marches in to acclaim, as if he is freeing the city from a usurper. The king and the court are at Coventry, but as soon as they hear the news, the call goes out across the country that the king is mustering and summoning all his affinity. York has taken London; Lancaster must march.

  “Are you going now?” I demand of my husband, finding him in the stable yard, checking over the harness and saddles of his horses and men. At last, I think, he sees the danger to the king and knows he must defend him.

  “No,” he replies shortly. “Though my father is there, God keep him safe in this madness.”

  “Will you not even go to be with your father in danger?”

  “No,” he says again. “I love my father, and I will join him if he orders me; but he has not commanded me to his side. He will unfurl the standard of Buckingham; he doesn’t want me under it, yet.”

  I know that my anger flares in my face, and I meet his glance with hard eyes. “How can you bear not to be there?”

  “I doubt the cause,” he says frankly. “If the king wants to retake London from the Duke of York, I imagine he only has to go to the city and discuss terms. He does not need to attack his own capital; he has only to agree to speak with them.”

  “He should cut York down like a traitor, and you should be there!” I say hotly.

  He sighs. “You are very quick to send me into danger, wife,” he remarks with a wry smile. “I must say, I would find it more agreeable if you were begging me to stay home.”

  “I beg you only to do your duty,” I say proudly. “If I were a man, I would ride out for the king. If I were a man, I would be at his side now.”

  “You would be a very Joan of Arc, I am sure,” he says quietly. “But I have seen battles and I know what they cost, and right now, I see it as my duty to keep these lands and our people in safety and peace while other men scramble for their own ambition and tear this country apart.”

  I am so furious I cannot speak, and I turn on my heel and walk away to the loose box, where Arthur, the old warhorse, is stabled. Gently he brings his big head down to me, and I pat his neck and rub behind his ears and whisper that he and I should go together, ride to Coventry, find Jasper, who is certain to be there, and fight for the king.

  JULY 10, 1460

  Even if Arthur and I had ridden out, we would have got there too late. The king had his army dug in outside Northampton, a palisade of sharpened stakes before them to bring down the cavalry, their newly forged cannon primed and ready to fire. The Yorks, led by the boy Edward, Earl of March, the traitors Lord Fauconberg and Warwick himself in the center, came on in three troops in the pouring rain. The ground churned into mud under the horses’ hooves, and the cavalry charge got bogged down. God rained down on the rebels, and they looked likely to sink in the quagmire. The boy Edward of York had to dig deep to find the courage to lead his men through ground that was a marsh, against a hail of Lancaster arrows. He would surely have failed and his young face would have gone down in the mud; but the leader on our right, Lord Grey of Ruthin, turned traitor in that moment, and pulled the York forces up over the barricade and turned on his own house in bitter hand-to-hand fighting, which pushed our men back toward the River Nene, where many drowned, and let Warwick and Fauconberg come on.

  In victory they were merciless. They let the common men go, but anyone in armor was killed without offer of ransom. Worst of all, they marched into our camp and found the king’s own tent, His Grace inside, sitting thoughtfully, as peaceful as if he were praying in his own chapel, waiting for them to capture him as the great prize of the battle.

  Terribly, treasonously, they take him.

  Two nights later my husband comes to me in my chamber as I am dressing for dinner. “Leave us,” he says abruptly to my lady-in-waiting, and she glances at me and then, seeing the darkness in his face, flicks out of the room.

  “My father is dead,” he says, without preparation. “I have just had word. England has lost a great duke in the mud of Northampton, and I have lost a dear father. His heir, my nephew, little Henry Stafford, has lost his grandfather and protector.”

  I gasp as if the air has been knocked out of me. “I am sorry. I am so sorry, Henry.”

  “They cut him down in a muddy field while he was trying to get to his horse,” he continues, sparing me nothing. “He, and the Earl of Shrewsbury, Lord Beaumont, Lord Egremont—dear God, the list is endless. We have lost a generation of noblemen. It seems that the rules of war are changed and there is no capture and ransom in England anymore. There is no offer of surrender. It is the rule of the sword, and every battle must be to the death. It is the rule of savagery.”

  “And the king?” I breathe. “They have not dared to hurt him?”

  “The king is captive, and they have taken him as their prisoner to London.”

  “Prisoner?” I cannot believe my ears.

  “As good as.”

  “And the queen?”

  “Missing with her son.”

  “Missing?”

  “Not dead. I believe run away. In hiding. What a country this is becoming. My father …”

  He swallows his grief and turns to look out of the window. Outside the trees are rich and fat and green, and the fields beyond are turning golden. It is hard to imagine a field of churned mud and my father-in-law, that vain aristocrat, clubbed down while running away.

  “I shall not dine in the hall tonight,” my husband says tightly. “You can go in, or be served in your rooms as you like. I will have to ride to Northampton and fetch his body home. I shall leave at dawn.”

  “I am sorry,” I say again, weakly.

  “There will be hundreds of sons making the same journey,” he says. “All of us riding with broken hearts, all of us thinking of vengeance. This is what I feared would come; this is what I have dreaded. It is not very bright and honorable as you have always thought it; it is not like a ballad. It is a muddle and a mess, and a sinful waste, and good men have died and more will follow.”

  I hide my fears from my husband till he leaves for the journey on the high road south, but of course I am in utter terror for Jasper’s safety. He will have been where the fighting was the worst; there is no doubt in my mind that anyone going to the king’s tent will have had to get past Jasper. He cannot be alive if the king has been captured. How can he still live, when so many are dead?

  I get my answer even before my husband returns home again.

  Sister,

  I have taken a very great lady and her son to safety and they are in hiding with me. I will not tell you where, in case this letter falls into traitors’ hands. I am safe and your son is safe as I left him. The lady will be safe with me until she can get away. It is a reverse for us, but it is not over, and she is full of courage and ready to fight again.

  —J.

  It takes me a moment to realize that he has the queen in safekeeping, that he spirited her from the battle and has her in hiding in Wales. Of course, the king may be imprisoned, but while she is still free we have a commander; while her son is free we have an heir to the throne. Jasper has guarded our cause, has guarded the most precious heart of our cause, and there is no doubt in my mind that she will be safe with him. He will have her in hiding at Pembroke or Denbigh Castle. He will keep her close, I don’t doubt, and she will be grateful for his protection. He will be like a knight errant to her; he will serve her on bended knee and she will ride behind him, her slim hands on his belt. I have to go to the chapel and confess to the priest that I am filled with the sin of jealousy, but I don’t say exactly why.

  My husband comes home in somber mood, having buried his father and delivered up his nephew to his new guardian. Little Henry Stafford, the new