Jean Plaidy (11 page)

My father was at the door of the cabin. His eyes were anxious and I felt a sudden tenderness toward him. He does love us, I thought. He truly does. It is only that he is so busy fighting to keep his power that there is little time to show it.

“How is she?” he asked.

“Poorly,” replied my mother. “If we had a little wine…even…”

“You think that would help?”

“She could sip it and it has a soothing effect. It might even dull the pain.”

My father sent one of the small boats in with a message to Wenlock asking him for wine for his daughter who was in childbirth. He said the man should be his friend but at times like these how could one know who was a friend? But he understood Wenlock must obey the king's orders. Warwick was no longer the Kingmaker; he was an outcast from England fighting for survival.

However, Wenlock did comply with the request and to my mother's delight he sent the man back with two casks of wine. There was something else that Wenlock did. With the wine came a secret message to my father telling him that it would be folly for him to attempt a landing. It was what they were hoping he would do. He had authorized the gunfire to prevent such a landing. The earl should make his way to a French port for it was certain that Louis would be hospitable to his old friend.

It was sound advice.

Meanwhile, Isabel's condition was becoming desperate. The wine helped a little but she was very ill, and I guessed from Ankarette's pursed lips and unhappy expression that something was wrong.

My mother came to tell me.

“She is sleeping now. Poor child. It was a difficult birth.”

“And the child? Is it a boy?”

“The child was a boy,” she said.

Understanding flashed into my mind.

I said, “The child…is dead?”

My mother nodded.

         

Our great concern was Isabel. My mother and Ankarette were with her. There was no room for anyone else in the small cabin. If I could have been with her I should have felt easier in my mind, but to be shut away from my sister whom I had known all my life and might never know again filled me with numbed misery.

I thought of her trying on her wedding dress, so contented with herself and life. She was to marry Clarence; she would be Queen of England; the child she would have would one day be king; she would start a dynasty…the dynasty of York and Warwick. What dreams to come to nothing!

I prayed for her to live. Perhaps that prayer would be granted. Then I prayed for the impossible—that we could go back to Middleham and be girls together…back in the happy days with Richard of Gloucester among the boys who came to my father's castle to learn the arts of war.

At last I was allowed to go and see her, but only for a short time.

My mother had said, “The worst is over. With care she will recover.”

She lay back exhausted…free of pain…the useless, futile, purposeless pain. I felt a sense of relief that she was not yet aware that the child that had cost her so dearly was dead.

My mother came to me and said, “She is breathing more easily. She will recover, I hope and pray. I rejoice that we have not lost our Isabel.”

The ship was pitching and tossing. In the extremity of our anxiety we had not noticed the discomfort. Now, as I stood up, I had to cling to my mother for support.

“There is the burial,” she said.

I was glad Isabel was spared that.

They had sewn the little body into a sheet. I could not bear to look at it. It was so depressing—small and helpless. All those months it had been growing, waiting for that moment when it would come into the world…and it had come only to leave it.

The captain of the vessel was saying a prayer. We stood in silence as the sheet encasing the little body slipped into the water.

THE ROAD TO BARNET

H
ow peaceful it was within those convent walls! I was dazed by all that had happened and although in my heart I knew this was only a respite, there was an overwhelming comfort to be on dry land, away from violent conflict, able to listen to the low soft voices of the nuns and the sound of the bells calling them to prayer.

They had cared for us tenderly since our arrival on the orders of the King of France that they should succor us and give us all we needed to restore us after our ordeal. But I like to think they would have been good to us without that command.

For the first days I just gave myself up to the luxury of that peaceful ambiance; it was only later that I began to ask myself, for how long?

After the burial of the child, we had continued at sea. My father was very angry that he had been denied entry into Calais, and for this he blamed the Duke of Burgundy; he had to appease that anger, and he made a point of sailing along the coast and taking any Burgundian vessel in sight.

We had grown accustomed to the sound of gunfire…of the rejoicing when another prize had been captured as we sailed along the Channel, flying the emblem of the Ragged Staff. Warwick, fleeing from his country, denied entrance to Calais, throwing himself on the mercy of the King of France, must show Burgundy and Edward—and Louis—that he was a force to be reckoned with.

There we were—three helpless women, my mother, my sister, and I—only half realizing what was happening to us. It seemed we had lost our home…lost everything…and were doomed to sail forever on an unpredictable sea.

But it could not last. Of that we were certain. And it was a great relief to us when we sailed into Honfleur harbor, honored guests of the King of France.

What I did not know then was that my father had needed that time he spent on plundering to make up his mind. While he ranged the seas like a pirate, he was coming to a conclusion. He was too ambitious to be easily defeated. He had gambled with Edward first and misjudged him; then in desperation he had turned to Clarence. He was a kingmaker by nature. He himself wanted to rule, but the rights of kings came through inheritance and for that reason he could not be king—but he could make a king who should rule through him.

Now there was only one way he could turn. It must be a complete contradiction of all that had gone before. It needed a great deal of consideration before he embarked on this road. He hated the Lancastrians. Henry was mad and there was his difficult and domineering wife to deal with. Could he do it? That was what he had to decide while he roamed the seas.

And when he went to Honfleur, he had made that decision.

Perhaps it was fortunate for me that I did not know of it, but if I had I should never have guessed what effect it was going to have on me.

But when we came ashore at Honfleur, nothing seemed of any importance but the blessed relief of escaping from the sea; but before we could land we had to have the permission of the King of France to do so and the prizes our father had taken were a stumbling block. The relationship between Louis and Burgundy was considerably strained and the King of France could scarcely receive with honor one who had perpetrated such acts of war upon the duke. So the fleet was sent off while we remained in harbor awaiting Louis's pleasure.

Louis heard of Isabel's condition and declared that ladies should not be subjected to more hardship. He would arrange for us to be housed in a convent while the earl came to his court for discussion between them, which he was sure would be advantageous to them both.

Thus—for us—to the convent and temporary relief.

         

Under the care of the nuns, Isabel grew a little better. She was more frail and needed to rest often. Deeply she mourned the loss of the child and talked of him often. The fact that he had been a boy made it even harder to endure. He would have been everything that she had hoped for.

“All those months of discomfort and then…nothing,” she mourned.

“You can have more children. People often lose one,” I comforted her.

“I don't want to go through all that again. But I suppose one has to do it. It's one's duty…especially when…”

I knew she was thinking of Clarence as King of England. She seemed to have forgotten that we were in flight from England, that Edward was king and unlikely to lose his throne to Clarence. Had she not realized yet that her husband was weak and vain, that my father was getting impatient with him and was regretting he had ever thought of putting him on the throne? She would not accept that, of course, and it was perhaps better to let her have her dreams, particularly when the reality was too bleak to contemplate.

My father was in constant touch with our mother. I always felt uneasy when letters arrived at the convent; and I think she did, too. I was always afraid that they would contain orders for us to pack and depart—perhaps go to sea again.

I wanted to stay here. I loved the quiet life, but I knew it was asking too much that it should last.

One day my mother received a communication from my father and she sent for me. As soon as I saw her face I was filled with misgivings.

“There is something I have to say to you, Anne.”

“My father…”

“I have heard news from him. He mentions you.”

“Me? But why?”

“Because it is something that concerns you.”

I stared at her in amazement.

“Your father has spent some time with the King of France. Louis is a strange man but he and your father have always been good friends. Part of the trouble was Edward's friendship with Burgundy, and for a long time there has been discord between the kings of France and the dukes of Burgundy.”

I knew her well enough to realize she was putting off telling me this news that concerned me, and that was because it was something that I was not going to like. I was beginning to feel more and more uneasy.

“As you know,” she went on, “your father was badly deceived by Edward.”

“You mean his marriage?”

“It was most unsuitable. Not so much because he married so much beneath him, which he did, of course, but because of those greedy Woodvilles.”

“I know all this,” I said. “I have heard it many times. Please tell me what it is that concerns you.”

“You are of a marriageable age.”

I felt terror grip me. They had found a husband for me. A French husband. I should be torn from my home…from my mother, from Isabel…from Middleham. I had always dreaded it and here it was.

“Many girls in your position would be betrothed by now. It has been a great joy for me to be able to keep you with me.”

“Tell me…tell me who it is…”

“You will be surprised. Your father has always been such an ardent Yorkist. But things have changed. There has been too much perfidy. Your father has decided to support King Henry. After all, as the son of the late King Henry the Fifth, he is the rightful inheritor of the throne. He comes before Edward of York. Now Henry has a son…”

“Henry's son! Prince Edward!”

“That is so. I heard he is a handsome boy, perhaps a year older than you…which will be just right. You are really very fortunate.”

I could not believe this. I had always heard that Henry was mad: Queen Margaret was a virago; their son Edward, a vapid youth of no importance. My father had changed sides…so blatantly. How could he? We had been brought up to believe that the Lancastrians were our enemies…and now they were planning to make me one of them.

“It cannot be true,” I gasped.

“My dear child, it is true. Your father is going to put Henry back on the throne and he wants you to be the wife of the Prince of Wales.”

“Oh no…please…”

She took me into her arms and I saw the tears on her cheeks.

She said, “We have to accept our fate, my dearest. It is what we are born for. It happens to all of us.”

I said, “Isabel was happy in her marriage.”

“Poor Isabel! That should never have been. You will be happy, my dearest child. It is just at first that it is a little shock, that is why your father wanted you to be prepared.”

A little shock! I felt as though the world I had known was falling about me.

         

There was only Isabel to whom I could talk. She was resting on her bed. She looked beautiful with her long fair hair loose on the pillow, but she was pale and still very frail.

“What has happened?” she asked in alarm.

“I have just been told I am to marry.”

“To marry! I expect our father has made some arrangement with the King of France. Who is it?”

“The Prince of Wales.”

“The Prince of Wales? He must be a baby.”

“Not a son of Edward but King Henry's.”

She looked at me in blank amazement.

I went on: “Our father is arranging it with the King of France.”

“Why should it concern the King of France?”

“I think it must be that he is going to help our father put Henry on the throne.”

“How can he?”

“With arms and money supplied by Louis, I suppose.”

“He…he can't!”

“Then why should he want his daughter to marry Prince Edward?”

She lifted her head and, resting it on her elbow, stared at me. “What of George?” she asked.

“The plans have evidently changed.”

“How can they change?”

“Easily. If our father and the King of France decide to change them.”

“I can't believe this. Our father has always been for York. How could he change like that?”

“Because he has quarreled with York. He can no longer make York kings, so he will make a Lancastrian one. After all, as my mother says, Henry is the true king.”

“It's nonsense.”

I shook my head. “How I wish it were.”

“George is to be king.”

I did not say so but I thought, that was never a wise plan and could not have succeeded. I could not imagine how my father had ever thought it could. How could he have controlled the volatile George whose only concern would be for his own glory?

I could see the reasoning behind all this. My father must make kings through whom he could rule, and Edward had shown that he would not allow that. But if he could succeed, proud Margaret and Henry could be malleable in his hands.

It made sense; and I had become a necessary part of my father's schemes.

Why had I been unhappy on those violent seas? I should have been more at peace there than I now was in this quiet convent.

My one hope was that it would not be yet. My mother had thought it best to warn me and I could not make up my mind whether it would have been better not to know, so that I could have enjoyed peace a little longer, or to be prepared for the blow that was to come.

Isabel tried to comfort me, but I think she was more concerned as to what it would mean to George. I myself wondered that, too, for if my father were supporting the House of Lancaster, where would George come into this? He would be our enemy. How could there be such conflict within the family, for his marriage to Isabel had made George one of us?