Margaret runs forwards and would grab his reins but he puts his whip-hand down to prevent her from touching him. ‘I won’t stay. I promised him I would warn you and this I have done. I’m off.’
‘The duke?’
‘Run away!’
The shock makes her shrill. ‘The Duke of Somerset!’
‘That’s him. Run like a deer.’
‘Where is Edward?’
‘Coming!’ is all he shouts, and he wheels his horse and gallops off down the road, the sparks flying from the horseshoes.
‘We must go,’ Margaret says flatly.
I am overwhelmed by the sudden defeat. ‘Are you sure? Shouldn’t we wait for Prince Edward? What if that man was mistaken?’
‘Oh yes,’ she says bitterly. ‘I am sure. This is not the first time I have run from a battlefield and perhaps it will not be the last. Get them to bring our horses. I will get my things.’
She dashes into the house and I run to the stable and shake the old groom and tell him to bring my horse and the queen’s horse at once.
‘What’s the matter?’ His gummy old smile breaks his wrinkled face into a thousand cracks. ‘Battle too hot for you, little lady? Want to get away now? I thought you were waiting to ride out in triumph?’
‘Get the horses out,’ is all I say.
I hammer on the door of the hayloft for the two men who are supposed to guard us and order them to get ready to leave at once. I run inside to fetch my cloak and my riding gloves. I hop on the wooden floor as I cram my feet into my riding boots. Then I scramble out into the yard, one glove on, one in my hand, but as I get to the yard and shout for them to bring my horse to the mounting block, there is a thunder of hooves outside and the gate to the yard is suddenly filled with fifty horses and I can see, amid them all, the black curly head of Richard Duke of Gloucester, my childhood friend, the ward of my father, and the brother of Edward of York. Beside him, I recognise at once, is Robert Brackenbury, his childhood friend, still faithful. Our two men have handed over their pikes, they are stripping off their jackets as if they are glad to be rid of the insignia of the red rose and my husband, Prince Edward’s, badge of the swan.
Richard rides his great grey horse right up to me, as I stand, like a martyr, on the mounting block, as if he thinks I might mount behind him and ride pillion. His young face is grim. ‘Lady Anne,’ he says.
‘Princess,’ I say weakly. ‘I am Princess Anne.’
He takes off his hat to me. ‘Dowager princess,’ he corrects me.
For a moment his meaning does not sink in. Then I sway and he puts out a hand to steady me so that I do not fall. ‘My husband is dead?’
He nods.
I look around for his mother. She is inside the priory still. She does not know. The horror of this is quite beyond me. I think she will die when she hears this news. I don’t know how I am going to tell her.
‘At whose hands?’
‘He died during the battle. He had a soldier’s death: honourable. Now I am taking you into safe-keeping, according to the orders of my brother King Edward.’
I draw close to his horse, I put one pleading hand on his horse’s mane and I look into his kind brown eyes. ‘Richard, for the love of God, for my father’s love for you, let me go to my mother. I think she is in an abbey somewhere called Beaulieu. And my father is dead. Let me go to my mother. There is my horse, let me mount it and go.’
His young face is stern; it is as if we are strangers, as if he had never seen me in his life before. ‘I am sorry, Dowager Princess. My orders are clear. To take you and Her Grace Margaret of Anjou into my keeping.’
‘And what of my husband?’
‘He’ll be buried here. With the hundreds, thousands of others.’
‘I will have to tell his mother,’ I say. ‘Can I tell her how he died?’
His sideways glance, as if he is too afraid to meet my eyes, confirms my suspicions. That was how he used to look when he was caught out in some misdemeanour in the schoolroom. ‘Richard!’ I accuse him.
‘He died during the battle,’ he says.
‘Did you kill him? Or Edward? Or George?’
The York boys stick together once more. ‘He died in battle,’ Richard repeats. ‘A soldier’s death. His mother may be proud of his courage. You too. And now I must bid you get on your horse and come with me.’
The door of the priory opens and he looks up and sees her as she comes slowly down the steps in the sunshine. She has her travelling cape over her arm and a little satchel on her back; they caught us only by moments, we had nearly got away. She sees the fifty cavalrymen, and looks from Richard’s grim face to my shocked one, and she knows at once the news that he brings. Her hand goes out to the stone doorway to steady herself, and she holds the arch at the height where she used to hold her son’s little hand when she was Queen of England and he was her precious only boy.
‘My son, His Grace the Prince of Wales?’ she asks, clinging to the title now that she will never hold the young man again.
