SANDWICH, KENT, AND CALAIS,
WINTER 1460

Richard is ill paid for warning the queen that the Warwick ownership of Calais has put an enemy on our shoreline, for as soon as the fighting is done and the peace won, she asks him to go to Sandwich and reinforce the town against attack.

‘I’ll come too,’ I say at once. ‘I can’t bear you to be in danger and me far away. I can’t bear for us to be parted again.’

‘I’m not going to be in danger,’ he lies to reassure me, and then, catching my sceptical expression, he giggles like a boy caught out in a blatant falsehood. ‘All right, Jacquetta, don’t look at me like that. But if there is any danger of an invasion from Calais you will have to go home to Grafton. I’ll take Anthony with me.’

I nod. It’s useless to suggest that Anthony is too precious to be exposed to danger. He is a young man born into a country constantly at war with itself. Another young man, of just his age, is Edward March, the Duke of York’s son, across the narrow seas, serving his apprenticeship in soldiering with the Earls of Warwick and Salisbury. His mother, the Duchess of York, held in England, will not be able to get a word to him. She will have to wait and worry, as I wait and worry. This is not a time when mothers can hope to keep their sons safe at home.

Richard and I take a house in the port of Sandwich, while Anthony commands the men at Richborough Fort nearby. The town has still not recovered from the French raid of only a few years ago, and the burned-out shells of houses are a vivid statement of the danger fromour enemies, and the narrowness of the seas between us. The town defences were destroyed in the raid, the French fired cannon at the sea walls and captured the town’s own armament. They mocked the citizens, playing tennis in the market square as if to say that they cared nothing for Englishmen, that they thought us powerless. Richard sets builders to work, begs the armourer at the Tower of London to cast new cannon for the town, and starts to train the townsmen to form a guard. Meanwhile, just a mile away, Anthony drills our men and rebuilds the defences of the old Roman castle that guard the river entrance.

We have been in the town little more than a week when I am suddenly frightened from sleep by the loud clanging of the tocsin bell. For a moment I think it is the goose bell which rings in the darkness of five o’ clock every morning, to wake the goose girls, but then I realise that the loud constant clanging of the bell means a raid.

Richard is out of bed already, pulling on his leather jerkin and snatching up his helmet and his sword.

‘What is it? What is happening?’ I shout at him.

‘God knows,’ he says. ‘You stay safe in here. Go to the kitchen and wait for news. If Warwick has landed from Calais, get down into the cellar and bolt yourself in.’

He is out of the door before he can say more and then I hear the front door bang and a yelling from the street, and the clash of sword on sword. ‘Richard!’ I shout and swing open the little window to look down into the cobbled street below.

My husband is unconscious, a man has hold of him and is in the act of dropping his body to the cobblestones. He looks up and sees me. ‘Come down, Lady Rivers,’ he says. ‘You cannot hide or run.’

I close the casement window. My maid appears in the doorway, shaking with fear. ‘They have the master, he looks as if he is dead. I think they have killed him.’

‘I know,’ I say. ‘I saw. Get my gown.’

She holds the gown for me and I step into it, let her tie the laces and then put on my slippers and go downstairs, my hair in its night-time plait. I pull up the hood of my cape as I step out into the icy-cold January street. I look around but all I can see, as if engraved on my eyelids, is the man lowering Richard to the ground, and the fall of Richard’s limp hand. At the end of the street I can make out half a dozen guardsmen struggling with a man. A glimpse of his face, as he looks desperately towards me, shows me Anthony. They are taking him on board ship.

‘What are you doing with my son? That is my son, release him.’

The man does not even bother to answer me, and I run across the slippery cobbles to where they have left Richard on the ground, like a dead man. As I reach him he stirs and opens his eyes, he looks dazed. ‘Jacquetta,’ he says.

‘My love. Are you hurt?’ I am dreading him saying that he has been stabbed.

‘A cracked head. I’ll live.’

A man roughly takes him under the shoulders. ‘Carry him into our house,’ I order.

‘I’m taking him on board,’ the man says simply. ‘You’re to come too.’

‘Where d’you think you are taking us? On whose authority? This is not an act of war, it is a crime!’

He ignores me. One man takes Richard’s boots, he holds his shoulders, they lug him like a carcase. ‘You may not take him,’ I insist. ‘He is a lord of the realm, under the command of the king. This is rebellion.’

I put my hand on the man’s arm but he simply ignores me and lugs Richard down to the quayside. Behind me, all around me, I can hear men shouting and women screaming as the soldiers go through the town, taking what they want, throwing open doors and banging the precious glass out of windows.

‘Where do you think you are taking my husband?’

‘Calais,’ he says shortly.

It’s a quick voyage. Richard recovers his senses, they give us clean water and something to eat, Anthony is unhurt. We are locked in a little cabin at first and then, once the ship is at sea and the great sail unfurled and creaking, they let us out on deck. For a little while we cannot see any land, England is lost behind us, but then we see a dark line ahead of us on the horizon, and as we watch we can see the squat mound of the city and, on its crest, the round walls of the castle. I realise I am returning to Calais under guard, as a hostage, to the town that I once entered as a duchess.

I glance at Richard and see that he remembers this too. This is an outpost which was under his command. Now he is a prisoner. This is the turn of fortune’s wheel indeed.

‘Take care,’ he says quietly to me and to our son. ‘They shouldn’t harm you, Jacquetta, they know you, and they like you. And they don’t make war on women. But the queen’s treatment of the Duchess of York will have angered them and we are quite in their power. No-one is going to rescue us. We will have to get out of this alive, by our own wits. We are quite alone.’

‘The Duke of Somerset holds Guisnes Castle, he might come for us,’ Anthony suggests.

‘Won’t get within half a mile,’ my husband says. ‘I have fortified this town, son, I know its strengths. Nobody will take it by force this century. So we are hostages in enemy hands. They have every reason to spare you, Jacquetta, and many a good reason to kill me.’

‘They can’t kill you,’ I say. ‘You have done nothing wrong but be loyal to the king from the day you were born.’

‘That’s why I’m the very man they should kill,’ he says. ‘It will fill the others with fear. So I am going to mind my manners and speak gently, and if I have to swear to give up my sword to save my life, I will do that. And –’ he addresses Anthony, who flings himself aside with an impatient word, ‘and so will you. If they ask for our parole and for our promise that we never take arms against them, we will give that too. We have no choice. We are defeated. And I don’t plan to be beheaded on the gallows that I built here. I don’t plan to be buried in the cemetery that I tidied and cleared. Do you understand?’

‘I do,’ Anthony says shortly. ‘But how could we have let ourselves be taken!’

‘What’s done is done,’ Richard says sternht="0">

They keep us on the ship till nightfall, they do not want Richard paraded through the town and seen by the people. The influential merchants of Calais love him for defending them when the castle was claimed by York. The men of the town remember him as a loyal and brave captain of the castle whose word was law and could be trusted like gold. The troop of Calais love him as a firm and just commander. It was the experience of serving under Richard that persuaded the six hundred men to change sides at Ludlow, and support the king. Any troop that has been commanded by him will follow him to hell and back. Warwick does not want this most popular captain to appeal to the people as he goes through the town.

So they wait till late at night and bring us like secret captives into the great hall of the castle under cover of darkness, and the sudden blaze of torches is blindingly bright after the black streets outside. They bring us through the gateway, under the stone arch and then into the great hall with blazing fires at either end and the men of the garrison at the trestle tables, uneasy at the sight of us.

The three of us stand, like penniless runaways from a war, and look around the great hall, the vaulted ceiling with the smoke-blackened beams, the torches ablaze in the sconces all round, some men standing, drinking ale, some seated at dining trestle tables, and some rising to their feet at the sight of my husband and pulling off their caps. At the top of the hall, the Earl of Salisbury, his son the Earl of Warwick, and the young Edward, Earl of March, son of Richard, Duke of York, sit at the head table, raised on the dais, the white rose of York on a banner behind them.

‘We have taken you as prisoners of war and will consider your parole,’ the Earl of Warwick starts, solemn as a judge from his seat at the head table.

‘It was not an act of war, since I am under the command of the King of England; an act against me is an act of rebellion and treason against my king,’ Richard says, his deep voice very strong and loud in the hall. The men stiffen at the note of absolute defiance. ‘And I warn you that anyone who lays a hand on me, on my son, or on my wife, is guilty of rebellion and treason and illegal assault. Anyone who harms my wife is, of course, not worthy of his spurs nor of his name. If you make war on a woman you are no better than a savage and should be thrown down like one. Your name will be defamed forever. I would pity a man who insulted my wife, a royal duchess and an heiress of the House of Luxembourg. Her name and her reputation must protect her wherever she goes. My son is under my protection and under hers, a loyal subject of an ordained king. We three are all loyal subjects of the king and should be free to go our own ways. I demand safe passage to England for the three of us. In the name of the King of England, I demand it.’

‘So much for the soft answer that turneth away wrath,’ Anthony says quietly to me. ‘So much for surrender and parole. My God, look at Salisbury’s face!’

The old earl looks likely to explode. ‘You!’ he bellows. ‘You dare to speak to me like this?’

The York lords are seated high on the dais and Richard to look up at them. They rise from their chairs and glower down at him. He is utterly unrepentant. He walks towards the stage, and stands, his hands on his hips. ‘Aye. Of course. Why not?’

‘You don’t even deserve to be in our company! You have no right even to speak without being spoken to. We are of the blood royal and you are a nobody.’

‘I am a peer of England and I have served under my king in France and Calais and England, and never disobeyed him or betrayed him,’ Richard says very loudly and clearly.

‘Unlike them,’ Anthony supplements gleefully to me.

‘You are an upstart nobody, the son of a groom of the household,’ Warwick shouts. ‘A nothing. You wouldn’t even be here if it was not for your marriage.’

‘The duchess demeaned herself,’ young Edward of March says. I see Anthony stiffen at the insult from a youth of his own age. ‘She lowered herself to you, and you raised yourself only by her. They say she is a witch who inspired you to the sin of lust.’

‘Before God, this is unbearable,’ Anthony swears. He plunges forwards and I snatch at his arm.

‘Don’t you dare move, or I will stab you myself!’ I say furiously. ‘Don’t you dare say a thing or do a thing. Stand still, boy!’

‘What?’

‘You are not fit to come among us,’ Salisbury says. ‘You are not fit to keep company.’

‘I see what they are doing, they’re hoping you will lose your temper,’ I tell him. ‘They are hoping you will attack them and then they can cut you down. Remember what your father said. Stay calm.’

‘They insult you!’ Anthony is sweating with rage.

‘Look at me!’ I demand.

He darts a fierce glance at me and then hesitates. Despite my hasty words to him, my face is utterly calm, I am smiling. ‘I was not the woman left in Ludlow marketplace when my husband ran away,’ I say to him in a rapid whisper. ‘I was the daughter of the Count of Luxembourg when Cecily Neville was nothing more than a pretty girl in a northern castle. I am the descendant of the goddess Melusina. You are my son. We come from a line of nobles who trace their line back to a goddess. They can say what they like behind my back, they can say it to my face. I know who I am. I know what you were born to be. And it is more, far more, than they.’

Anthony hesitates. ‘Smile,’ I command him.

‘What?’

‘Smile at them.’

He raises his head, he can hardly twist his face into a smile but he does it.

‘You have no pride!’ Edward of March spits at him. ‘There is nothing here to smile at!’

Anthony inclines his head slightly, as if accepting a great compliment.

‘You let me speak like this of your own mother? Before her very face?’ Edward demands, his voice cracking with rage. ‘Do you have no pride?’

‘My mother does not need your good opinion,’ Anthony says icily. ‘None of us care what you think.’

‘Your own mother is well,’ I say to Edward gently. ‘She was very distressed at Ludlow, to be left on her own in such danger, but my husband, Lord Rivers, took her and your sister Margaret and your brothers George and Richard to safety. My husband, Lord Rivers, protected them when the army was running through the town. He made sure that no-one insulted them. The king is paying her a pension, and she is in no hardship. I saw her myself a little while ago and she told me she prays for you and for your father.’

It shocks him into silence. ‘You have my husband to thank for her safety,’ I repeat.

‘He is base-born,’ Edward says, as someone repeating a lesson by rote.

I shrug my shoulders as if it is nothing to me. Indeed, it is nothing to me. ‘We are in your keeping,’ I say simply. ‘Base or noble. And you have no cause to complain of us. Will you give us safe passage to England?’

‘Take them away,’ the Earl of Salisbury snaps.

‘I would like my usual rooms,’ Richard says. ‘I was captain of this castle for more than four years, and I kept it safe for England. I usually have the rooms that look over the harbour.’

The Earl of Warwick curses like a tavern owner.

‘Take them away,’ Salisbury repeats.

We don’t have the rooms of the captain of the castle, of course, but we have good ones looking over the inner courtyard. They keep us only for a couple of nights and then a guard comes to the door and says that I am to be taken by ship to London.

‘What about us?’ my husband demands.

‘You’re hostages,’ the soldier says. ‘You’re to wait here.’

‘They are to be held with honour? They are safe?’ I insist.

He nods to Richard. ‘I served under you, sir, I’m Abel Stride.’

‘I remember you, Stride,’ my husband says. ‘What’s the plan?

‘My orders are to hold you here until we move out, and then to release you, unhurt,’ he says. ‘And I’ll obey them, and no others.’ He hesitates. ‘There’s not a man in the garrison would harm you, sir, nor your son. My word on it.’

‘Thank you,’ my husband says. To me he whispers, ‘Go to the queen, tell her they are preparing to invade. Try and see how many ships you can count in the pool. Tell her I don’t think they have many men, perhaps only two thousand or so.’

‘And you?’

‘You heard him. I’ll get home when I can. God bless you, beloved.’

I kiss him. I turn to my son, who goes down on his knee for my blessing and then comes up to hug me. I know he is broad and strong and a good fighter, but to leave him in danger is almost unbearable.

&lsquour Grace, you have to come now,’ the guard says.

I have to leave them both. I don’t know how I get up the gangplank of the merchant ship or into the little cabin. But I have to leave them both.