I go to the window. I can see a troop of men coming down the road towards the castle, out of their lines, stumbling like a weary crowd not marching together like a force, and ahead of them the mounted knights going slowly, wearily. I recognise my father’s warhorse Midnight with his head bowed, and a bleeding wound deep in his shoulder. ‘It’s Father, coming home,’ I say.
Isabel is up from her bed in a moment, and we run down the stone stairs to the great hall and fling open the door as the servants of the castle pour into the yard outside to greet the returning army.
My father rides in at the head of his troop on his weary horse, and as soon as they are safe inside the castle walls, the drawbridge creaks up and the portcullis rattles down and my father and his son-in-law, the handsome duke, dismount from their horses. Isabel at once leans on my arm and puts her hand to her belly, to make a tableau of maternity, but I am not thinking of how we appear, I am looking at the faces of the men. I can tell at one glance that they are not victorious. My mother comes up behind us and I hear her quiet exclamation and I know that she too has seen weariness and defeat in this army. Father looks grim, and George is white with unhappiness. Mother’s back straightens as she braces herself for trouble and she greets Father briefly with a kiss on each cheek. Isabel greets her husband in the same way. All I can do is curtsey to them both and then we all go into the great hall and Father steps up on the dais.
The ladies in waiting are standing in a line, and they bow as my father comes in. The senior men of the household follow us into the room to hear the news. Behind them come the servants, the garrison of the castle and those of the troop who chose to come to listen rather than go to rest. Father speaks clearly enough so that everyone can hear. ‘We rode in support of my kinsmen Lord Richard and Sir Robert Welles,’ he says. ‘They think, as I do, that the king is under the control of the queen and her family and that he has reneged on his agreements to me, and that he is no king for England.’
There is a murmur of approval; everyone here resents the power and success of the Rivers family. George clambers up on the dais to stand beside my father as if to remind us all that there is an alternative to this faithless king. ‘Lord Richard Welles is dead,’ Father says bleakly. ‘This false king took him out of sanctuary –’ he repeats the terrible crime done against the laws of God and man ‘– he took him out of sanctuary, and threatened him with death. When Lord Richard’s son Sir Robert was arrayed for battle this false king killed Lord Welles before the battle even started, killed him without a trial, on the field of battle.’
George nods, looking grave. To break sanctuary is to undermine the safety and power of the church, to defy God Himself. A man who puts his hand on the altar of a church has to know that he is safe there. God Himself takes such a criminal under his protection. If the king does not recognise the power of sanctuary then he is setting himself up as greater than God. He is a heretic, a blasphemer. He can be very sure that God will strike him down.
‘We were defeated,’ my father says solemnly. ‘The army mustered by the Welles’ was broken in Edward’s charge. We withdrew.’
I feel Isabel’s cold hand come into mine. ‘We’ve lost?’ she asks disbelievingly. ‘We’ve lost?’
‘We will retreat to Calais and regroup,’ Father says. ‘This is a setback but not a defeat. We will rest tonight and tomorrow we will pack up and march out. But let no-one mistake, this is now war between me, and the so-called King Edward. The rightful king is George of the House of York, and I shall see him on the throne of England.’
‘George!’ the men shout, raising their fists in the air.
‘God save King George!’ my father prompts them.
‘King George!’ they reply. In truth they would swear to anything that my father commanded.
‘
DARTMOUTH, DEVON, APRIL 1470
We travel at the steady speed of the mules that carry Isabel’s litter. Father has scouts following behind our retreating army and they report that Edward is not chasing us out of his kingdom. Father says that he is a lazy fool and he has gone back to the queen’s warm bed in London. We go by easy stages to Dartmouth where Father’s ship is waiting for us. Isabel and I stand on the quayside as the wagons and the horses are loaded. The sea is so calm it could be a lake, the day is hot for April, with the white seagulls wheeling in the air and calling; there is a pleasant smell of the quayside, the tang of salt, of drying seaweed from the nets, of tar. This could almost be a summer day and Father planning a pleasure voyage for us.
