The Red Queen Read online

  Jasper leaps to his feet in a swift, impatient movement. “Sir Henry, in honor, you have no choice. You must fight because your king has called on you, because the head of your house has called on you. If you are of the House of Lancaster, you follow the call.”

  “I am not a hound to yelp at the hunting horn,” my husband says quietly, not at all stirred by Jasper’s raised voice. “I don’t give tongue to order. I don’t bay for the chase. I will go to war should there ever be a cause I think worth dying for—and not before. But I do admire your, er … martial spirit.”

  Jasper flushes to the roots of his ginger hair at the older man’s tone. “I think this is no laughing matter, sir. I have been fighting for my king and for my house for two years, and I must remind you that it has cost me dear. I lost my own brother at the walls of Carmarthen, the heir to our name, the flower of our house, Margaret’s husband who never saw his son—”

  “I know, I know, and I am not laughing. I too have lost a brother, remember. These battles are a tragedy for England, no laughing matter. Come, let us go in to dine and forget our differences. I pray that it will not come to a fight, and so must you. We need peace in England if we are to grow strong and rich again. We conquered France because the people were divided among themselves. Let us not lose our way, as they did; let us not be our own worst enemies in our own country.”

  Jasper would argue; but my husband takes him by his arm and leads him to the great hall, where the men are already seated, ten to a table, waiting for their dinners. When Jasper comes in, his men hammer the table with the hilts of their daggers as applause, and I think it a great thing that he is such a commander, and so beloved of his men. He is like a knight errant from the stories; he is their hero. My husband’s servants and retainers merely bow their heads and doff their caps in silent respect as he goes by. But no one has ever cheered Henry Stafford to the rafters. No one ever will.

  We walk through the deep rumble of male noise to the high table, and I see Jasper glance over at me as if he pities me for marrying a man who will not fight for his family. I keep my eyes down. I think that everyone knows I am the daughter of a coward, and now I am the wife of a coward, and I have to live with shame.

  As the server of the ewery pours water over our hands and pats them with the napkin, my husband says kindly, “But I have distracted you from the great interest for my wife: the health of her son. How is young Henry? Is he well?”

  Jasper turns to me. “He is well and strong. I wrote you that his back teeth were coming through; they gave him a fever for a few days, but he is through that now. He is walking and running. He is speaking a lot, not always clearly, but he chatters all the day. His nursemaid says that he is willful, but no more than befits his position in the world and his age. I have told her not to be too severe with him. He is Earl of Richmond: he should not have his spirit broken, he has a right to his pride.”

  “Do you tell him of me?” I ask.

  “Of course I do,” he says with a smile. “I tell him that his mother is a great lady in England and will come and see him soon, and he says ‘Mama!’ just like that.”

  I laugh at his impression of a two-year-old’s fluting voice. “And his hair?” I say. “Is it coming through red like Edmund’s?”

  “Ah no,” Jasper says with a disappointment that I don’t share. “We did not breed true in that, as it turns out. His hair is in ringlets and brown, like a bright bay horse. His nursemaid thinks he will go more fair in the summer when he is out in the sunshine, but he won’t be a brass head like us Tudors.”

  “And does he like to play? And does he know his prayers?”

  “He plays with his bat and his ball, he will play all day if someone will throw a ball for him. And he is learning the Lord’s Prayer and his catechism. Your friend Father William sees him every morning for prayers, and his nursemaid sets him at the foot of his bed every night and makes him stay there. He is ordered to pray for you by name.”

  “Do you have playmates for him?” my husband asks. “Children from the neighboring houses?”

  “We are very isolated in the castle,” Jasper replies. “There are no families of his breeding nearby. There are no suitable companions for a boy such as him. He is Earl of Richmond, and kinsman to the king. I cannot let him play with children from the village, and besides, I would be afraid of illness. He plays with his nursemaids. I play with him. He does not need any others.”

  I nod. I don’t want him playing with village children who might teach him rough ways.

  “Surely, he needs to be with children of his own age,” my husband demurs. “He will need to match himself against other lads, even if they are from the village and from cottages.”

  “I will see when the time comes,” Jasper says stiffly. “He needs no companions but those I give him, for now.”

  There is an awkward silence. “And does he eat well?” I ask.

  “Eats well, sleeps well, runs about all day,” Jasper says. “He is growing well too. He will be tall, I think. He has Edmund’s shape: long and lean.”

  “We will go and visit him as soon as it is safe to travel,” my husband promises me. “And Jasper, you are sure you can keep him safe there?”

  “There is not a Yorkist left in Wales who could raise enough troops to take Pembroke village, let alone my castle,” Jasper assures us. “William Herbert is the king’s man now; he has turned his coat completely since his pardon, he is a Lancaster man now. Wales is safer than England for a Lancaster boy. I hold all the key castles and patrol the roads. I will keep him safe, as I promised. I will always keep him safe.”

  Jasper stays with us only two nights, and in the days he rides out among our tenants and musters as many men as will go with him to march to London to defend it for the king. Few of them are willing to go. We may be of the House of Lancaster; but everyone who lives close enough to London to hear the gossip of the court knows better than to lay down his life for a king that they have heard is half-mad, and a queen who is a Frenchwoman and a virago as well.

  On the third day, Jasper is ready to ride away again, and I have to say good-bye to him. “You seem happy at any rate,” he says to me quietly in the stable yard as his men saddle up and mount onto their saddles.

  “I am well enough. He is kind to me.”

  “I wish you could persuade him to play his part,” Jasper says.

  “I do what I can, but I doubt he will listen to me. I know he should serve, Jasper, but he is older than me and thinks he knows better.”

  “Our king could be fighting for his very right to rule,” Jasper says. “A true man would be at his side. One of the House of Lancaster should not wait to be summoned, let alone ignore the call.”

  “I know, I know, I will tell him again. And you tell baby Henry that I will come and see him as soon as the roads are safe to travel.”

  “There will be no peace and safety for travel until York and Warwick submit to their rightful king!” Jasper says irritably.

  “I know that,” I say. “But for Sir Henry—”

  “What?”

  “He is old,” I say with all the wisdom of a sixteen-year-old. “He does not understand that God gives us a moment sometimes, and we have to seize it. Joan of Arc knew that, you know it. Sometimes God gives us a moment of destiny, and we have to hear the call and rise to it.”

  Jasper’s smile warms his face. “Yes,” he says. “You are right, Margaret. That is how it is. Sometimes there is a moment and you have to answer it. Even if some think you are nothing more than a foolish hound to the hunting horn.”

  He kisses me as a brother-in-law should do, gently on the mouth, and he holds my hands for a moment. I close my eyes and feel myself sway, dizzy at his touch, and then he lets me go, turns his back on me, and swings into the saddle.

  “Is our old horse Arthur still carrying you well?” he asks, as if he does not want either of us to notice he is leaving me again and riding into danger.

  “Yes,” I say. “I ride out on him