Fortune's Wheel Read online

  A sound of noisy masculine weeping managed to distract her out of her own nightmare. Sniffing and wiping her nose on her sleeve — her handkerchief had got lost — she saw her brother-in-law Clarence sitting on a coil of wet rope, his head in his hands, bawling like little boy lost. Someone had told him already. Anne was almost surprised that he cared so much. Men liked to have a son for the first baby. He kept moaning that he wanted to die. Then as if acting on a sudden impulse, he leapt up and flung himself down the hatchway. In a minute he emerged, clutching the little chest of baby clothes, which had been ready for the dressing of his son. This he proceeded to hurl into the sea. For one horrified moment Anne thought he was going to throw himself after it, but he merely sagged against the rail, hanging over it as desperately as she had done herself. Maybe he had intended to throw the dead child itself into the sea. She did not like to watch him; handsome people looked worse suffering their indignities, somehow, than ugly ones. Instead, she watched the chest lurch away, filling gradually with water until it sank. It was very early morning. Isabel’s labour must have started the previous afternoon. All the sea and sky were palest grey and chill, milky and blurred as if draped with damp cheese cloth. The church bells of Calais were jangling out over the sea. It was Easter Day.

  The little garments had not sunk. They floated away in a long line. A tiny shirt, the arms extended, buoyant on a bubble of air, looked as if occupied by a headless, legless mite. Anne shuddered. Yards and yards of swaddling bands danced along the waves, longer than a grand streamer. Three dozen napkins went more sluggishly. Minute socks were scattered like petals in a pond. Bibs and bonnets, trailing ribbons, went the same way. Everything went the same way. Clarence would soon see his firstborn son cast into the sea like its unworn clothes.

  The storm had died. In the calm, her father and half-uncle came back, crowing like cockerels in triumph, their ships loaded to the waterline with booty. Fauconberg bounced onto his nephew’s ship only to have his mood of self-congratulation shattered by the news. Warwick’s wife, half dead with seasickness and exhaustion, could scarcely bring herself to speak to them. Lord Wenlock sent a boat out from Calais with a cask of wine. What use was wine now? It wouldn’t help Isabel. Besides, they had plenty on board. But Warwick did not send the gift back.

  The baby was sewn up in canvas and buried in the sea. Odd, Anne thought, the Duke of Clarence’s son lying at the bottom near Calais for ever and ever. Her first nephew. She supposed there would be others. Isabel would have to go through all that again. Warwick watched his grandson disappear, his face expressionless. Only a few months before, he had planned to make that child a new Prince of Wales. Now he was intent upon remaking the original Prince, Edward of Lancaster. Clarence, who never did anything by halves, was refusing to speak to Warwick. He didn’t say much to anyone else, either. He was a picture of sulking misery.

  Anne’s mother spent all her time with Isabel, who did nothing but cry. A still-birth could mean months of wretchedness and tears. It would be no surprise if childbed fever set in, and if that happened, Isabel would swiftly follow her baby into death. The Earl, his youngest daughter noticed, kept away as much as he could from the women’s cabin, on the excuse of inspecting the ships he had taken as prizes. Anne had never before felt so unwanted, yet she was now more important to her father than Isabel.

  It was not long before King Edward caught up with them. Ships flying the scallop-shell pennants of Lord Rivers were sighted, then others with a white lion on a red ground; the energetic Lord Howard had put to sea in all haste. ‘There goes a fine sea captain!’ said Fauconberg regretfully. This, from him, was an accolade, and it proved not to be bestowed without cause. Howard flushed the Earl of Warwick out of his anchorage beside Calais, and chased him down the coast of France. As the pursuit grew hot, Warwick decided that he must rely upon his old friendship with King Louis, seek the aid of France and do his haggling with Queen Margaret on French soil. On May Day his harried fleet put in to the Seine estuary and the Earl at last landed his family at Honfleur.

  Anne would have been grateful to land in the dominions of the Turk. Her legs felt as if made of soap. Isabel was too ill to walk yet. Even Clarence’s long, elegant legs had to feel their way onto land. The citizens of Honfleur were suspicious at first of the English Earl and his ships of war, but when Warwick had some of his Burgundian loot brought ashore, and set up a sort of market stall to dispose of it for as many livres as he could bargain, they became more cheerful.

  Once on shore, Warwick behaved as if he had received no setback. He sent messages to King Louis asking for a personal interview, as from one monarch to another. He sat in Honfleur while King Louis’ envoys tried to persuade him that it was dangerous to do so. The Count of St Pol’s territory lay too near for comfort; he was a friend of the Duke of Burgundy, and therefore likely to be hostile. He was also Elizabeth Woodville’s uncle. King Louis’ anxiety over the Burgundian ships Warwick had seized was conveyed. King Louis insisted that they should be moved from Honfleur and moored somewhere more discreetly off the Cotentin, instead of being flaunted in waters so near Burgundy itself. Duke Charles’ temper would only be inflamed by this; he was already threatening to invade France. It might be judicious for the Earl to retire to the Channel Islands, out of reach of both France and Burgundy.

  Warwick had intended to cause a disturbance in the realm of France. He preferred to act the bold adventurer rather than the skulking fugitive. He would do nothing until he had talked with King Louis face to face. He planned to send his wife and daughters up the Seine to some abbey, St Wandrille or Jumièges, while he travelled to meet the King wherever was convenient, but he changed his mind at Louis’ urgent request and arranged instead that they go deeper into Normandy, to Bayeux or Caen. King Louis, allowing Warwick the victory in the first manoeuvre, agreed to a meeting.

  By the end of May the Earl was ready to make the journey to the castle of Amboise in the valley of the river Loire. He would take with him his son-in-law Clarence, as much as anything to stifle the growing discontent by including him in the plans, and his brother-in-law John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, who had managed to escape from England by a different route a short while after Warwick himself.

  Before he set out for Amboise, Warwick sent for Anne. It was an interview about which he had been uneasy for some time, and when she stood in front of him, he was struck both by her pathetically immature looks and the adult reserve on her face. It did nothing to make his task more pleasant. He had the honesty to resist adopting a tone of jovial reassurance, so came straight to the point.

  ‘Anne, my plans have gone better than I expected. I am going to Amboise to talk with King Louis. After that he will summon Queen Margaret and plead my cause with her. When some satisfactory agreement has been reached, I shall come back to Normandy and prepare to return to England. You shall go to Amboise. I want you to be ready, Anne, to assume the dignity of Princess of Wales.’

  Anne’s eyes, grey like his own, transparent and clear, but not, he thought, at this moment innocent, stared at him. Now the news she so dreaded had been finally delivered, she felt cold, but not able to say anything. She nodded.

  Warwick continued, glad to meet at least silent compliance. ‘The Prince, whatever may have been said regarding his antecedents, is a well-educated youth, of some ability. It may be necessary in future for him to take on the direction of government before his father’s death, that is, if King Henry’s incapacity continues. You may be Queen of England, little daughter, sooner than you think.’

  The eyes looking at him widened at that. The childish bony chest jerked as if on a soundless indrawn breath. The expression was unmistakable, panic-stricken terror. It had a most unpleasant effect on Warwick. He felt like an executioner. Poor little frightened mouse, he thought involuntarily. However, he pushed on, to overcome the distressing sight of his daughter’s face.

  ‘Any daughter of mine could have expected a husband of no less rank than Duke. The highest rank of all is no
t so very different. It will be a proud day for a Neville. You must know this.’

  Anne still said nothing. Her mouth was too dry. In any case, there was little to be gained by saying anything. Nothing made her father more angry than complaint or argument. He was being gentle enough, but he would not be deflected from his purpose. On the table in front of him were his money calculations, little piles of counters in neat rows, a sheet of notes. How much from the sale of the Burgundian ships, how much in loans from King Louis, how much from Lancastrian supporters in England. He had it allotted to the last farthing and sou. She was worth nothing except to her father’s ambition and Neville pride. For this he had her life for sale.

  *

  ‘Non! Non! Non!’

  King Louis winced. Not only was it wearisome to witness once again Margaret of Anjou’s obstinacy enduring into its fourth week, but she hammered her words at him threefold, as if invoking the invincible Trinity.

  ‘Madame, ma cousine,’ the King of France pointed out to the deposed Queen of England, ‘this will not do. You will throw away a Heaven-sent gift of aid. Monseigneur de Warwick offers men, ships, money…’ He ticked off each item on his stubby, peasant’s fingers. ‘And above all, he offers himself. The people of England like him even better than King Edward. You need a man, Madame,’ he said brutally, ‘to head your army, not a boy or a woman.’ He nearly added — and not a moon wit like your husband King Henry, either. If this woman had subtlety to temper her force of will she would be the match of a man, which was as near as he would get to admiring her toughness, but her obstinacy, like all foolishness, exasperated him. Four weeks of immurement in his castle of Amboise, arguing with Margaret, had frayed his temper.

  He had hoped to be able to summon Warwick back from Vendöme, where he was waiting discreetly, to join them before this. Margaret of Anjou’s advisers and her fellow exiles had so far kept their mouths shut. Sir John Fortescu, late a Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, looked lugubriously pessimistic, but perhaps this was the normal expression of an aged English legal gentleman. His compatriot and fellow lawyer, Dr John Morton, was sitting there with a sardonic look on his narrow face. It was difficult to remember that he was a priest, for he wore ordinary layman’s clothes. Louis felt that he might enjoy a little verbal fencing with this man and could well make use of his gifts. Morton was a year or two Louis’ elder, and he’d been mouldering ten years in exile. Well, no, not mouldering; he was honing up his wits all the while, hoping for better times. Churchmen often lived long and achieved greatness after kings had died of exhaustion.

  Queen Margaret gave no one else the opportunity to answer. Her clear, imperious voice had a resonance which Louis felt sure she cultivated; it could cut across men’s voices with ease. ‘You ask me to welcome Warwick like a long-lost brother? He is the reason why I, the Queen of England, am living on charity at St Mihiel-en-Barrois — or here at Amboise at your expense, Majesty…’ Margaret often gave back as good as she got. ‘Why my husband, the rightful, anointed King of England’ — she did not ram home the fact that Henry VI had also been anointed King of France, as she was quite capable of doing — ‘is a prisoner in the Tower of London, while that Yorkist stallion Edward subverts the allegiance of his true subjects. Warwick is the reason why my son, the heir of England, has lived nine years in exile and forgets his father and the realm that is his inheritance. Warwick has called me a bitch, a French bitch — a whore — and my son a bastard! My son, the grandson of Harry the Fifth and of your kinswoman, Louis! Your majesty asks me to forgive him this? I tell you, it is impossible. The wounds he has inflicted on me will bleed till the Day of Judgement!’

  ‘And I tell you, madame, to put the gifts of God to your own advantage.’ King Louis’ expressive voice was distinctly curt. ‘I suggest that you make God’s instrument, Monseigneur de Warwick, the means of restoring King Henry and yourself to the throne. That will no doubt help to staunch your wounds. You have friends who would give their lives to achieve this, but not all of them together can do what the mere name of Warwick can do. I have not asked you to love him, nothing to soil your honour.’

  Margaret turned on him. ‘My honour! You speak to me of honour! My friends, you say? Would my good friends, who have shared my suffering, stay with me to serve its author? I will betray them if I ally with Warwick.’

  Morton, the lawyer-cleric, cleared his throat. ‘Your Grace, my very dear madame, may I speak for us?’ He gracefully included the others with a gesture of a white claw of a hand. ‘I believe that we serve the rightful King of England of the line of Lancaster; we always have, and always shall. If we have won Richard Warwick from York to serve Lancaster, surely our own loyalty cannot be brought into question? I regard the service of Lancaster to be in part the winning of whomever we can get to be our allies. We cannot uphold our cause without them.’ His lizard’s glance flickered round his fellow exiles with no question in it, only confidence that they shared his view. He was a man of the world, uninhibited by his cloth, clarifying female emotion with male logic. ‘My lord of Pembroke has been the loyalest of all, is the closest in blood to Lancaster. What do you say, my lord?’

  Jasper Tudor, half-brother of Henry VI and King Louis’ own cousin, had been Earl of Pembroke until his attainder, by King Edward. He was the eldest of three sons borne by Katherine of Valois, after the death of her husband Henry V, to Owen Tudor, a Welsh squire. The York faction liked to assume that he was a bastard. He might get his sandy fair colouring and tall, sturdy frame from his father but, by God, he got his Valois nose from his mother; another finger’s width in length and it would match Louis’ own.

  Brought up in England as befitted the half-brother of the King, he had taken up the life of a wild brigand in Wales during the period of Henry’s misfortune, then come home to roost as an exile in his mother’s native land. His chief asset was his dogged loyalty, which counterbalanced his lack of talent as a soldier. His grandfather, and Louis’ own, Charles VI of France, might have been mad, but this was at least not allied in Pembroke, as it was in Henry of Lancaster, to the volatile, war-fevered English Plantagenet blood.

  ‘For fifteen years,’ he said, ‘I have risked my life, been hunted and made a pauper, for the sake of my brother. Warwick is answerable to me for these hard years. But he is a man of great repute in England, as you say, Majesty. If we reject his offer now, then we may face more years in exile, and my poor deposed brother may languish to death in the Tower.’

  King Louis snapped his fingers with a loud crack, in triumph that his argument had been so vindicated. ‘Très bien, Gaspard! You see, madame, your loyal friends are of my opinion. Monseigneur de Warwick is my friend. I, the King of France, will stand surety for him. Meet him — here, anywhere — you shall name the place. He can win England for your husband, madame Marguerite, for your son, your dear son!’ Louis was a master of applying pressure in the softest place. Margaret of Anjou had few vulnerabilities, except where her son was concerned. But she did not show them. She would not bend her head, or her knee. She regarded herself not as a subject of the Most Christian King of France, but as his equal.

  ‘Your Majesty presses me too hard. I cannot and will not see him. I have no more to say. Nothing.’ That was clearly that. She asked his permission to withdraw, but she went as proudly as an empress.

  Louis turned to fondle the greyhound that sniffed familiarly at his hose. ‘Many rain drops wear away even granite,’ he observed, apparently to the dog. ‘She will talk to him. Soon we shall see the Queen of England and my friend Monseigneur de Warwick truly married! Then he will win England.’ He did not voice his true thought: win it for me, for France, and bring us to the first fruitful alliance for centuries.

  Instead, he said, ‘Why, of course my dear cousin Henry of Lancaster will be restored. He has been anointed in France with the sacred coronation oil of St Rémy — God will undoubtedly fight for him!’ He crossed himself piously, then winked and let out a great hoot of laughter. His dog jumped up happily to lick
his nose. The only response to this outburst of mirth was a few polite smirks from the exiles. The English often thought King Louis’ jokes were in bad taste.

  King Louis, as he was accustomed to do, continued to spin his web, to bind together the protagonists of his schemes. Warwick, waiting at Vendöme, began to find his son-in-law Clarence unendurably quarrelsome, and suggested that he should go back to Normandy and make himself useful in readying their expedition to England, for at a conference with Queen Margaret, he could only be a nuisance. To Warwick’s surprise, George of Clarence did as suggested and went off in a huff to Valonges, where they agreed to meet later.

  No one remembered a very tiny fly helplessly enmeshed upon the edge of King Louis’ web. On the few occasions when he thought about his little daughter, Warwick projected her image into the future. He saw her as Princess of Wales, then crowned Queen; his grandson would be King of England. To the child he had watched grow, who had claimed more of his affection than he would admit, he scarcely gave thought. He was not a man to dwell in the past; it fell away from him like a discarded cloak.

  King Louis, as he invariably did, succeeded in what he had planned. In the hot, high summer days of July, he set out with Queen Margaret, by barge down the river Loire, to her father’s ducal town of Angers. Louis, on tenterhooks, sweated to keep her to her word, reading rebellion in her face every hour of the day when the Earl of Warwick was to come to the castle of Angers.