Stormbird

11

With warm furs on her hands and wrapped snugly around her neck, Margaret walked into the frost-covered gardens. Wetherby House was her first home in England, where she’d spent almost three months. The trees were still stark and bare, but there were snowdrops growing around their roots and spring was on its way. It could almost have been France and walking the paths eased some of the homesickness in her.

All the local farms were slaughtering pigs and salting meat. Margaret could smell the smoke and she knew the dead animals were being piled with straw, which was lit to burn off their bristles. The bitter odour brought a sudden memory, so vivid that she stood and stared. Her mouth recalled the taste when her mother had let the stable lads mix fresh blood with sugar into a paste, almost a mousse. Her sister Yolande and her brothers had shared a bowl of the rare treat, squabbling over the spoon until it fell into the dust, then dipping their fingers until their skin and teeth were stained red.

Margaret felt her eyes sting with tears. Saumur would be quieter without her that summer. It was hard not to miss her mother’s stuffed sardines or fennel chicken when Margaret was presented with a solid pork joint sitting like a boulder in a sea of peas in heavy cream. It seemed the English liked to boil food. It was one more thing to get used to.

Lord William was a comfort, almost the only familiar face since leaving home. He had helped her improve her English, though he could rattle along in good French when he wanted, or when he had to explain a word. Yet he had been away more often than not, arriving back at the house every few days with more news of the wedding.

It was a strange hiatus in Margaret’s life while great men and women arranged her second marriage. When she’d landed on the south coast by Portchester Castle, she’d hoped Henry would come to her. She’d had a vision of a handsome young king riding to the grand ruins from London, arriving perhaps that first night to sweep her into his arms. Instead, she’d been carried away to Wetherby and, apparently, forgotten. The days and weeks had slipped past with no sign of the king, only Suffolk or his friend Earl Somerset, a short, wiry man who had bowed so deeply that she feared he might never be able to rise again. She smiled to remember it. Before Somerset arrived, Derry Brewer had described him to her as ‘a right noble cockerel’. She’d learned the phrase in delight, her amusement made deeper when she met the earl and found him dressed in bright blue and yellow. She liked all three men for different reasons. Derry was both charming and polite and he’d slipped her a bag of tiny sweets when William wasn’t looking. She’d been caught halfway between outrage at being treated as a child and delight at bitter lemon drops that made her mouth pucker as she sucked them.

Christmas had come and gone, with strange and gaudy presents arriving in her name from a hundred noble strangers, all taking the opportunity to introduce themselves. With William as her consort and chaperone, Margaret had gone to a ball she still remembered in a whirl of pungent apple cider and dancing. She’d hoped to see her husband there, her mind filled with romantic tales where the king would appear and the revellers would all fall silent. Yet Henry had not come. She was beginning to wonder if he ever would.

She looked up at the sound of a carriage crunching across the gravel drive on the other side of the house. William was away that day and Margaret was filled with worry that it would be another of the English noblewomen come to inspect her or bargain for favours they clearly thought she could provide. She had sat in strained meetings with the wives of earls and barons, nibbling seed cake dipped into spiced wine and straining to find something to say in reply to their questions. Duchess Cecily of York had been the worst of them, a woman so very tall and assured that she made Margaret feel like a sticky child. Margaret’s English was still less than fluent and the duchess claimed to have no French, so it had been one of the hardest afternoons of her life, with far more silence than talk.

‘I will be ill again,’ Margaret muttered to herself at the thought of another such meeting. ‘I will be … indisposed.’

In fact, she had been truly sick for a time after arriving. The strange heavy food perhaps, or just the change of air, had reduced her to helpless vomiting, with learned doctors forbidding her to leave her bed for the best part of two weeks. She’d thought then that the exquisite boredom would kill her, but those days of quiet had become a strangely happy memory, already half-forgotten.

She had a vague idea that a queen should support her husband by flattering and cajoling his supporters, but if Cecily of York was the standard, it would not be an easy thing to learn. Margaret recalled the woman’s dry, sour smell and shuddered.

She looked up as a high voice called her name in the distance. Dear God, they were looking for her again! She could see servants moving in the house and she trotted a little further down the garden paths to hide herself from the windows. William said the marriage would be in just a few days. He’d been red-faced and amused, his great mane of dark grey hair brushed and shining when he came to tell her. On his return, she’d travel to the abbey at Titchfield, not ten miles away. Henry would be there at last, waiting for her. She only wished she could picture the young king’s face when she imagined the scene. In her mind, she’d married him a thousand times, with every detail vivid except for that one.

‘Margaret!’ someone called.

She looked up, suddenly more alert. When the voice called again, Margaret felt a great thump of excitement in her chest. She gathered her skirts and ran back towards the house.

Her sister Yolande was standing by the garden doors, looking out. When she caught sight of Margaret, her face lit and she ran forward. They embraced in the frozen garden, with white grass all around. Yolande poured out a torrent of rapid French, bouncing in place as she held her younger sister.

‘It is such a joy to see you again! You are taller, I swear, and there are roses in your cheeks. It is agreeing with you to be in England, I think!’

When there was no sign of the chatter coming to an end, Margaret pressed her hand over her sister’s mouth, making them both laugh.

‘How are you here, Yolande? I am thrilled to see you. I can hardly breathe with it, but how did you arrive? You must tell me everything.’

‘For your marriage, Margaret, of course! I thought we would miss it for a time, but I am here even so. Your Lord William sent the most beautiful invitation to me at Saumur. Father objected, of course, but he was distracted with some new trip he is planning. Our dear mother said the family must be represented and she prevailed, bless her saintly heart. Your English friend sent a ship for me, as you or I would send a carriage. Oh! And I am not alone! Frederick is with me. He’s growing a set of ridiculous whiskers. You must tell him they look terrible, as they scratch me so and I won’t have them on him.’

Margaret looked away, suddenly aware of the strangeness of her situation. She had been married months before her sister, but had never yet seen her husband. With a quizzical eye, she looked more closely at Yolande.

‘You look … blooming yourself, sister. Are you with child?’

Yolande blushed hot and pink.

‘I hope so! We have been trying and, oh Margaret, it is wonderful! The first time was a little unpleasant, but no worse than a bee sting perhaps. After that, well …’

‘Yolande!’ Margaret replied, blushing almost as deeply. ‘I don’t want to hear.’ She stopped to consider, realizing she did want to hear, very much. ‘All right, I’m sure Frederick will be out here looking for you in just a little while. Tell me everything, so that I know what to expect. What do you mean “a little unpleasant”?’

Yolande chuckled throatily as she took her younger sister by the arm and led her down the path away from the house.

Everything was different, yet everything was the same. The sense of déjà vu was intense as Margaret took her place in the carriage in the wedding dress she had worn at Tours. At least the day was cold, a blessing in a dress that crushed her.

Yolande sat across from her sister. To Margaret’s eyes, she looked more adult, as if marriage worked some strange alchemy, or perhaps because Yolande was now a countess in her own right. Her husband Frederick sat on the bench seat, looking stern in a dark tunic and with his sword across his knees. Margaret noticed he still wore the whiskers, stretching from his ears right down to his jawline. He’d said his father’s set were much admired in their parish and Margaret wondered if her sister would ever succeed in getting him to shave them off. Yet his sternness faded when he looked at Yolande. The affection between them was touching and obvious as they clasped hands and shifted with the coach on the potholed roads.

The morning had passed in a flurry of excitement, with William riding back and forth to the abbey on his own horse to see to the last details, then washing and changing into clean clothes in one of the upper rooms. Margaret had already been introduced to a dozen men and women she did not know as the wedding party filled Wetherby House, laughing and talking all the while. Her status was a delicate matter when it came to meeting noblemen and their wives. Not yet a queen, Margaret had curtsied to the Duchess of York, as she might have to any of her mother’s generation. Perhaps she only imagined Cecily York’s disdain as she complimented Margaret on her dress in return. Lord York was scrupulously polite and had bowed to her, saying how pleased he was to see her at her second marriage as well as her first. His wife had muttered a few words Margaret did not quite catch, but she saw it made York smile as he bent over her hand to kiss it. Something about their private amusement had irritated her.

With an effort, she put such thoughts aside. She would meet her husband today. She would see his face. As the cart rocked back and forth, she prayed silently that he would not be ugly or deformed. William had promised her that Henry was handsome, but she knew he could say nothing else. Fear and hope mingled in equal measures and she could only watch the hedges pass and the black rooks flying. Her forehead itched where her maids had plucked it back, but she dared not scratch marks in the white powder and bit her lip against the irritation. Flowers had been woven into her hair and her face felt stiff with all the paints and perfumes that had been applied since she’d bathed at dawn. She tried not to breathe too hard against the confining panels of her dress in case she fainted.

Margaret knew when they were growing close to the abbey of St Mary and St John the Evangelist because the local families had come out to see her pass, gathering on the road that led into the vast farmland owned by the monks. Apprentices had been given the day off from their labours in her honour and townsmen and — women had put on their church clothes just to stand and wait for the woman who would be queen of England. Margaret had a view of a cheering, waving crowd before her carriage swept past on to a drive that led for miles through woodland and fields laid in dark furrows.

The well-wishers did not cross that invisible boundary, and as the road dipped, Margaret could see carriages ahead and behind, fourteen of them travelling together to the abbey church in the distance. Her heart hammered against the dress and she touched her hand to her chest to feel it race. Henry would be there, a twenty-three-year-old king. She looked past her sister and Frederick to strain her eyes for the first glimpse of him. It was pointless, she knew. King Henry would be already inside, warned by the sight of the carriages on the drive. He could well be waiting at the altar, with William at his shoulder.

Margaret felt light-headed and feared she would faint before she could even arrive at the church. Seeing her distress, Yolande took out a fan and wafted cool air over her while Margaret sat back and breathed with her eyes closed.

The abbey church was part of a much larger complex of buildings. On that day, the monks were not working in the fields, but Margaret saw fishponds, walled gardens and vineyards, as well as stables and a dozen other structures. She found herself getting out of the carriage, helped by Frederick, who raced round to take her hand.

The carriages ahead had emptied and though many of the guests had gone inside, there was still a crowd at the church doors, smiling and talking amongst themselves. She saw Derry Brewer standing close to the Duke of York. Derry waved to her as Margaret swept forward with her sister and a gaggle of maids in tow. She saw him say something to York that made the man’s expression harden. As Margaret approached the church door, they all went into the gloom beyond, like geese ushered in by a goosegirl, so that she was alone with her sister and her maids.

‘Bless you for being here, Yolande,’ she said with feeling. ‘I would not have liked to stand alone.’

‘Pfui! It should have been Father, but he is away searching for his foolish titles once again. He is never satisfied. My Frederick says … No, that does not matter today. I only wish Mama could have stood here with us, but Father insisted she stay and run Saumur. You are in her prayers, Margaret. You can be sure of that. Are you ready to see your king? Are you nervous?’

‘I am … and I am, yes. I am dizzy with it. Just stay with me while I catch my breath, will you? This dress is too tight.’

‘You have grown since last summer, Margaret, that’s what it is. It was not too tight before. I see a bosom developing and I swear you are taller. Perhaps it’s true that English meat is good for you.’

She winked as she said it and Margaret gasped and shook her head.

‘You are shocking, sister. To make such jokes when I am waiting to be married!’

‘Best time, I think,’ Yolande said cheerfully. She switched to English with a sparkle in her eyes. ‘Now will you bloody hell be married?’

‘That’s not how you say it,’ Margaret said, smiling. She took another breath as best she could and inclined her head to the monks standing at the door. Inside, bellows were pumped and the most complicated device in the world built up pressure. The first chords sounded across the church congregation and they turned almost as one to see the bride enter.

Baron Jean de Roche was a happy man, though even brandy could not keep out the cold wind. Spring was coming, he could feel it. No one fought in winter. As well as being practically impossible to feed a marching army in the cold months, it was a brutal time to go to war. Hands went numb, rain soaked down and there was always a chance that your men would simply up and vanish in the night. He looked around at his little band of ruffian knights and smiled widely, showing his pink upper gum where he’d had all the teeth pulled. He’d hated those teeth. They’d hurt him so badly that he hated them even when they were gone. The day he’d agreed to have the pincer man yank them all had been one of the happiest of his adult life. A mouthful of blood and having to dip his bread in milk was a small price to pay for release from agony. He was certain his life had begun to improve from that day on, as if his teeth had been holding him back with all their poisons and swellings. He sucked in his top lip as he trotted on, folding it back along the gum and chewing the bristles. He’d had a few taken out below as well, but just the big ones at the back, where they’d rotted. He still had the teeth at the lower front and he had perfected a smile that revealed only that neat yellow row.

Life was good for a man with healthy teeth, he thought, complacently. He reached back and patted the saddlebags behind his hip, enjoying the fatness of them. Life was also good for a man with the initiative to ride ahead of the army into Maine. De Roche had been amazed at the results of looting homes in Anjou. It seemed the English did nothing but amass stores of coins, like the greedy little merchants they all were. De Roche had seen knights made rich in a single day and the French lords had learned quickly that it was worth their while to search carts heading north away from them. Families tended to take their most valuable possessions and leave the rest. Why spend time smashing a house apart when those who knew had already taken the best pieces? The noblemen gave a portion of whatever they found to the king, of course, but that was exactly the problem, at least as far as de Roche was concerned. They could afford it. Those men were already rich and would be much richer by the time they finished taking back English farms and towns.

His expression soured as he considered his own estate compared to theirs. His men could almost be described as hedge knights if not for his house colours. Just a year before, he’d been considering turning them all out before he became known as a hedge baron. He sucked his lips again at bitter memories. His family farms had all gone to pay debts, sliced away year by year until he had almost nothing left. He’d discovered cards then, introduced by a friend of his who had long since had his throat cut. De Roche thought of the colourful boards and wondered if there was anyone in Maine who could be persuaded to gamble with him. He’d had a run of bad luck, it was true, but now he had gold again, and he knew he understood the games better than most people he came across. With just a little change of fortune, he could double what his men had won for him, or even triple it. He smiled, showing just his bottom teeth. He’d buy back his father’s castle and turn the old boy out into the snow for all his sneering. That would be just the start.

The road under his little group changed from a dirt track to cut stone, a sure sign that those ahead were wealthy. De Roche let his mount amble along, wondering whether it would be worth the risk to enter a town. He had only a dozen men with him, enough to take whatever they wanted from a lonely farm or a small village. Towns could sometimes afford to employ a militia and de Roche had no desire to get into a real fight. Yet he wasn’t a criminal, wanted for anything. He was merely the forward vanguard of the victorious French army. Some forty miles forward, before the rest of his countrymen could take all the best pieces. De Roche made a quick decision. He could at least glance around at the local English merchants and decide then whether they’d make it too hot for his men.

‘Head into town,’ he called to the others. ‘We’ll have a little look and, if it’s quiet, see what we can find. If there’s a guardhouse, or a militia, we’ll find a good inn for the night like any other dusty travellers.’

His men were weary after another day on the road, but they talked and laughed as they trotted along. Some of the gold and silver would make its way to them and they’d found a farmhouse with three sisters the night before. De Roche scratched his crotch at the thought, hoping he hadn’t picked up lice again. He hated having to get his groin shaved and singed. He’d gone first with the sisters, of course, as was his right. His men had stories from that encounter to last them for months and he chuckled as they became wilder in the telling. De Roche had insisted on burning the place as they left that morning. Living witnesses could cause him a few difficulties, but another blackened shell would be ignored by the army coming up behind. God knew, they’d created enough of them.

He saw Albert angle his mount closer. The old man had been with de Roche’s family for as long as he could remember, as groundsman and horse trainer, usually, though de Roche could remember Albert running a few special errands for his father. Albert wore no armour, but he carried a long knife that was almost a sword and, like his father before him, de Roche had found him a useful man in rough country.

‘What is it, Albert?’ he asked.

‘I had an aunt near here when I was a boy. There’s a castle a few miles west, with soldiers.’

‘Well?’ de Roche said, glowering. It would not do to have a servant questioning his courage in front of the men.

‘Begging your pardon, milord. I just thought you should know it might be a little tougher than farmhouses and women.’

De Roche blinked at the old man. Had that been an insult? He could not believe it, but Albert was positively glaring at him.

‘Do I have to remind you that this little trip is no more than the English will get from the king and his army? They could have left, Albert. Many of them already have, in fact. Those who remain are illegal, every man, woman and child. No! Considering they have rebelled against their own king’s wishes, they are traitors, Albert. We are doing God’s work.’

As he spoke, his troop passed a farmer standing with his head bowed. The man’s cart was piled high with parsnips and a few of the men reached down and took a couple at a time. The peasant looked angry, but he knew better than to say anything. Somehow the sight appeased de Roche’s prickling outrage. He recalled that Albert had not taken his turn with the women the night before and decided the man was criticizing him.

‘Ride at the back, Albert. I’m not a child for you to wag your fingers at.’

Albert shrugged and pulled his horse to the side to let the others pass. De Roche settled himself, still furious at the man’s insolence. That was one who would not be benefiting from the riches of Maine, he thought. When they turned back to the army, de Roche swore he’d leave Albert behind to beg for his food, with all the years he’d served the family to keep him warm.

They reached the outskirts of the town with the sun already low in the west, a short winter’s day with a long night ahead before they saw it again. De Roche was tired and sweating by then, though his spirits rose at the sight of a painted inn sign swinging in the breeze. He and his men handed over their horses to stable lads, casting lots for which of their number would stay with the mounts while the others got a night’s sleep. De Roche led them inside, calling for wine and food in a loud voice. He did not notice the inn-owner’s child leave a few minutes later, belting off down the street into the town as if the devil himself was on his heels.