She-Wolf

Throughout it all, I have only wondered, what would mother do?

I was barely five when she made them recognise her: duchess, general, ruler, wife… Isabella, in fifty-three years you achieved more than the men that sought to cast you out, they who would have you hanged for whoring, or made married and silent for your lands and beauty. Mother, they skulk in court and whisper me “She-Wolf” but to you I am still the pup, stravaiging, as these northerners might say, aimless. They think me decisive, here, in this bitter land. I long for our days in Naples, though then I wished nothing but to forget. I yearn to see your hair flash before me, once more, in the gardens at Tarascon.

Yet I am here. Ahorse, men-at-arms glancing behind their eyelids, with disdain when not fear. Mist, leering. To call England cold by winter is to call gold glistening by shivelight. But I do not hate it for this; as you said, the land needs the ruler. And I shall rule.

If I could write to you, I might tell you of my son, mother, of the smell of stale blood, of what it means to be a queen. But you know these things all too well. Better than I might. And still, I live, here, amidst the fallout of battle, amidst the ruin of homes, of places families once lived. This is civil war, and a lesson you did not teach.

If I could write to you, I might tell you of my husband, of his bouts, of the crumbling of my lands beneath me, of pretenders and warlords. But to that I know you would not care. They might think you a petal or a cur, yet you grow on. You’re right, mother. I do grow on.

If I could write to you, I might tell you of recoiling families, lost to the wrath of wars I am leading, of eager men, capitalising on their king’s ill state, of what I have learnt of motherhood. Perhaps you would have something snappy for that, but I have forgotten. I would write to tell you that I remember you, in your crypt, sullen, still, so far away; I remember you in a way the world will never.

†

 

Prince Edward, worth all the value of a golden noble, both the coin and the metal man, stole gazes of uncertainty from his people, of false jeering for his prowess and majesty, all with a great deal of volatility, just as the lion in the prison might be the one to set all free, if it does not kill the prisoners before that jail door is opened. He had achieved little on his own for the praise he would be given of it; such was kingship: the warrior-king is born out of circumstance, not victory.

Margaret thought, as a mother, of how she wished he would stay at her side, far from the vicious urban warfare that had bloodied the streets and thatch of St. Albans this second time. Margaret thought, as her mother did, of how she wished Edward would do more, to win respect beside his fear. Margaret thought as her soldiers did, of how Edward might snap and have them hanged for his tyranny alone. They remembered Richard, and also how he fell. Meditations left up to God, as it were, and she breathed them into the brisk air.

That golden noble, decorated in gilt and an affinity of Lancastrian guard, the true-blooded, divinely-chosen king, if ever there could be one in such uncertain times, rode up to his mother. Queen Consort though she may be, Margaret knew that meant nothing without Edward. Seven years old and a killer if ever there would be one. Her killer, all the same.

Margaret halted her horse, raising her hand, halting the tactics of her commanders and the words of her men. ‘The Lancastrian heir approaches.’ They were silent.

His horse was barely even a pony, a skittish thing, as scared of Edward as ever anybody was. ‘Mother!’ Edward’s hair fluttered around his eyes, ‘the knights tell me we’ve won.’

‘That we have, Ed. They run from us because God swept through our side. Their cowardice is only matched by our clemency to give them rout and let some still live.’

‘Mother I heard some people saying that Uncle Owen died on Mortimer’s Cross. Who’s Mortimer? Is it about the other Edward?’

Margaret squeezed her eyelids, trying to divert some of the throbbing from her brain. ‘No… no, who said that?’

‘William.’ Edward’s innocent face only compelled Margaret’s brain to throb yet more.

‘Which William is that?’

A knight spoke up, ‘Sir—’

Margaret’s stare quieted him. ‘Never you mind, Edward, we’re going to see how your father is doing.’

‘Oh,’ Edward turned innocence to forlorn, ‘is Pa alright? I’d rather stay on the battlefield, if that’s fine with you—’

‘Edward, we go to your father.’

Edward set his pony to pivot. Each trot of defiance away came with a thump in her skull.

‘Edward!’

Edward did not so much as turn.

Margaret growled, first at the back of her son, then at the diverting gazes of her household guard. ‘Edward, I require your divine avatar for an execution!’

That caught his attention. It pricked the ears of some guiltier men-at-arms the same. ‘Oh! Mother who dies?’

†

Henry VI, King of England, and once King of France, was at all times idle, half-smiling, pondering at clouds, and quite busy plucking daisies from the dewy grass at the foot of his tree.

Margaret approached, her horse adamant not to tire treading up the incline, toward the lonely old oak, guardian of king and hill, steadfast but weary. It was not hard to see for many how Henry was pious figure; she had heard him singing as the battle raged, she had watched closer than all his disconnection with the temporal, his great works in constructing institutions of education, his indifference to the holdings his great father had campaigned so tirelessly to secure. But while a pious monarch may satisfy the Pope, that is all. Under that tree and its cascading shivelight, emerging through the damp haze of morning mists, doggindales, Henry was the picture of peace, serenity, divinity, innocence, and without ever the agency to have stopped or started the war his queen now fought for him.

The old codgers William Bonville and Thomas Kyriell, gracing their shimmering plate armour, sneered as Henry held up a daisy chain as though it was hand-crafted by God himself. ‘Hail, Sir Thomas, Lord Bonville,’ Margaret called, dismounting, trudging through the soggy grass, with a curtsy. They bowed as was proper for their queen, but no more. ‘How went your duties?’

‘My Lady Margaret,’ the proud knight Kyriell replied, as much to Margaret as to the incoming horde of Lancastrian soldiers, his lazy eyes darting about. ‘As you can see, our duties are fulfilled, as we were instructed… It is the failures of other Yorkists that compromise…’

Margaret, with a finger to her temple, turned to the grey-bearded Bonville, ‘Lord Bonville, I am disappointed that it came to this. Your king awarded you a fine stewardship, as you served so faithfully his father. Now you lay sonless and pathetic, having given all to that pig-head York, standing at his Majesty’s side just as it should have been. Yet circumstances mean everything. Yours call for blood.’

Thomas Courtenay, the Earl of Devon, approached by Margaret’s side, billhook gripped so tight it was audible, helmetless, facing the shocked face of Bonville. ‘I do not make the same mistakes that generation made, my queen.’

‘No, Thomas,’ Margaret said, coquettish, ‘I am certain of that.’

Bonville dropped his polearm, falling to his knees, at Kyriell’s alarmed dismay. Very little brought Bonville to his knees. ‘My Lady Margaret – my queen, your Majesty! Please! As you say, I serve the righteous rulers, the kings of England—’

‘And so you fall to your knees to betray your new lord. Our mutual friend York would be most displeased.’

‘But,’ Bonville glanced at king Henry, humming a solemn tune, ‘my queen, I pledge fealty to you, but Henry – the king, he is, well, not fit…’

Kyriell snivelled, catching Margaret’s eye, ‘I do not bow so easily as this snake, queen.’

‘Your fates are put in motion already,’ Margaret said, as Edward approached. ‘It has been decided, as the king’s son channels the Lord’s will.’ She turned to her son, eager, ecstatic, even, at the prospect inbound. Her head did not stop pulsing. ‘Edward, how should these men die?’

Kyriell’s off-putting gaze, his eyes rattling like they knew no fixed point, suddenly burst into a frenzy, beads of tears exuding from the whites, soon accompanying an intensive sob. ‘Your Majesty! We are Knights of the Garter, lords of England, surely—’

‘The Baron William Bonville is a lord of England, Sir Thomas. But you are both found guilty on accounts of treason, and your lands and titles are in question. Are there words you wish to say, before the crown prince decides your fate?’

‘Mother, I would like to see the heads of these men roll down their little hill, and let the tree drink their blood. Hello, father,’ Edward said, nonchalant, running toward the king.

The two disgraced Knights of the Garter stood frigid, still, as the tree beside them.

‘So it is,’ Bonville said, coming to stand as though he had not been begging but a moment before, turning to Courtenay, ‘but know this is unsettled, boy, and that justice is swift, delivered at the Lord’s whim, because vengeance belongs to him.’

Kyriell wiped his tears. ‘So it is, indeed, my friend,’ he stretched his hand to Bonville, who shook it as firm a man can. ‘So it is.’

An execution, un-pointed blade in hand, dispersed from the crowd, as blocks and buckets were orientated just so for men’s necks and heads, without little them slide too far down the hill.

Suddenly, king Henry stood, entirely disinterested in the affair, aside, apparently, at the mention of knights, ‘oh! Where is my son!’ Margaret knew any child could have been there and it would make no difference, it was merely a stroke of luck that the child present was indeed Edward, who fell into Henry’s frail arms. ‘A sword, a sword! I need knight this boy!’

And the flat of the blade slapped into Edward’s cheek, and the words of knighthood were spoken, and Prince Edward of Westminster was Sir Edward, as Kyriell’s head was cleanly disembodied, its weight tipping the bucket over, rolling with increasing speed to the chase of armoured soldiers and the horrified look of William Bonville, whose head soon joined Kyriell’s.

Edward filtered through the crowds, he and his father’s crimson cloaks and furs and jewels glimmering against the verdant grasses, knighting together, in laughter, any man they could see, until thirty in total were now “Sir” as Edward was.

Margaret felt the nausea, as always she did. She felt the sorrow, at putting two serving men to their deaths. They weren’t good men, without question, but it is in no one’s power, truly to bring death on the serving man, and she knew the fires of war were far from burnt out. Her mother would tell her to raise her chin higher than even she did, but never had her mother taught her the secret to relishing in it. She gave her husband a cautionary glance, longing to have his disconnection, his ease, his uncaring.

But a land needs a ruler.

‘London is ours to take, your Majesty,’ Courtenay said, dampened out by Margaret’s migraine. ‘How do we proceed?’

‘London’s does not smile on our cause.’

Courtenay followed her gaze, out at the ruin of smouldering St. Albans, plumes rising as ashen towers. ‘London is spineless. They will open for their queen.’

Margaret’s pounding head was hardly in agreement. ‘…Yet our supply needs replenishment…’ she looked at her husband and son, galivanting with a sword in hand, slapping the cheeks of soldiers, boar men, looters, rapers, pillagers, calling noble words for unsavoury types. London may let thirty knights in, but fifteen-thousand bumpkins with a mind ripe for plunder... ‘We must keep marching, whichever direction that takes us. Our objective stands: wipe this blemish of York from these lands for permanent, and for better, and…’ A sudden weight, certainly not that of victory, overcame her. Something truly gargantuan was on the horizon, and she knew more than any Lancastrian that it would be decisive. York’s son was proving himself already, and her migraine would not provide respite.

‘As you say, my queen.’

As I say. And what would mother say?

Henry had begun to sing again.