We hear the shouts of the sailors as they cast off the ropes then the door of the cabin bangs open and the queen comes in, her face alight with excitement. ‘We are sailing,’ she says. ‘We will be there before Edward.’ She laughs nervously. ‘We must get there before Edward and raise our troops to face him. He will be racing to catch this wind, just like us, but we must outsail him. It is a race now; we must get there before him.’
CERNE ABBEY, WEYMOUTH, 15 APRIL 1471
The queen sits in state in the great hall of the Cerne Abbey, her son standing behind her chair as if he is her personal guard, his hand on her shoulder, his handsome face grave. I am seated beside her on a lower chair – really, a stool – as if I were a little mascot, to remind everyone that the Warwick name and fortune is attached to this venture. We are waiting for the Lancaster lords to welcome us to the kingdom. Seated like this we present them with a tableau of unity. Only my mother is missing, as her ship and a few others of our fleet made landfall further up the coast at Southampton. She will be riding to join us now.
The double doors at the end of the hall swing open and the brothers of the House of Beaufort come in together. The queen rises to her feet and first gives her hands and then her cheek to Edmund Duke of Somerset, the son of the man that people said was her only love, then she greets his brother: John the Marquis of Dorset. John Courtenay the Earl of Devon kneels to her. These are men who were her loyal favourites when she was queen, who stayed faithful to her when she was in exile, and who rallied to my father for her sake.
I had expected them to come in shouting greetings, filled with excitement, but they look grim, and their entourage and the other lords behind them are not beaming either. I look from one dark face to another and I know already that something has gone wrong. I glance at the queen and see that her face has lost its rosy colour. The excitement of greeting is draining away, leaving her pale and stony. So she knows it too, though she greets one man after another, often by name, often asking after friends and family. Too often they shake their head, as if they cannot bear to say that a man is dead. I start to wonder if these are new deaths, if there has been some sort of attack in London, an ambush on the road? They look like men with new fears, with fresh grief. What has happened while we waited at the quayside in France? What disaster happened while we were at sea?
She makes up her mind to know the worst and turns, sweeping the train of her gown, to her throne, and seats herself. She clasps her hands in her lap, she grits her teeth. I see her screw up her courage. ‘Tell us,’ she says shortly. She indicates her son and even me. ‘Tell us.’
‘The York claimant, the impostor Edward, landed in the North a month ago,’ Edmund Beaufort says bluntly.
‘A month ago? He can’t have done. The seas must have held him in port . . .’
‘He set sail into the very teeth of the storm and he was all but wrecked, he lost his fleet at sea, but they found each other again and marched on York and then London. As always, he has a witch’s luck: his fleet scattered and then found each other again.’
Her son looks at her as though she has failed him. She says again, ‘The seas must surely have held him in port as they did us.’
‘Not him.’
She makes a small gesture with her hand as if to push away the bad news. ‘And my lord Warwick?’
‘Stayed true to you. Mustered his army and marched out against Edward. But he was betrayed.’
‘Who?’ The one word is like a cat’s spit.
Somerset throws a quick sideways glance at me. ‘George Duke of Clarence turned his coat and joined with his brother, Edward. The younger son Richard brought them together. They were, all three, reconciled. It was the three sons of York together again and George’s army and wealth was thrown onto the side of Edward. All George’s affinity stood behind him, the Yorks were reunited.’
She turns a burning glance on me as if I am to blame. ‘Your sister Isabel! We sent her ahead to keep him faithful! She was there to hold him to his word!’
‘Your Grace . . .’ I shrug. What could she do? What could she make George do, if he chose to change his mind?
‘They met near the village of Barnet, on the Great North Road.’
We wait. There is something terrible about the slow unfolding of this story. I clench my hands in my lap to prevent myself shouting out: ‘But who won?’
‘There was a mist like a low cloud that rolled in through the night, which they said was a witch’s mist. All night it grew thicker and darker, you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. One army couldn’t see the other. At any rate – we couldn’t see them.’
We wait, as they waited.
