Chapter Four

1459–1460

Years later when Dickon thought back on those few hours at Ludlow on the thirteenth day of October, his memories had blurred into a nightmare of dead bodies; yards of bloody entrails through which terrified horses slithered; screaming women slammed against walls as men thrust up brutally between their legs; houses on fire; pandemonium in the streets; and menacing soldiers brandishing pikes, clubs and daggers in the faces of the little group of women led by his dogged mother, who walked proudly with her young sons through the castle grounds to the market square, seeking the mercy of the king. How terrifying that, other than a few trusty servants, the duchess’s little party had no men left to defend them. Every second Dickon had expected to be separated forcibly from her, beaten, or stabbed, and he clung to her hand with every ounce of strength he had.

It was an angry army that awoke to find it had been hoodwinked that morning. Queen Margaret was livid her arch enemy had escaped and so allowed her troops to tear apart the barricade, swarm across the trench and over the bridge into Ludlow, where they ransacked the town. The screams, alarm bells and clashing steel penetrated the fitful sleep of the inmates in the castle, and soon pandemonium broke out behind the thick walls as those servants who remained and their noble charges hurried to dress and ready themselves for surrender.

“We shall not fight,” Cecily cried from the top step of the great hall, her weeping over. Proud Cis had emerged from her chamber earlier with a purpose. “I pray you put your trust in Our Sovereign King Henry. I am commanding that any man who is able to walk leave by the postern gate immediately. My ladies, my children and I shall walk out to meet the king and save the castle,” the duchess declared as though it were a routine, everyday task. When Duchess Cecily set her mind on something, it was pointless to object—although many in the room had fearful misgivings.

Constance had no qualms about leaving her mistress in charge as she slipped away to the infirmary to tend to the wounded, while the men of the household staff paid their respects to the duchess and began to leave through the postern gate. Only faithful Piers Taggett, his eyes never wavering from his mistress and savior, stayed by her side. Even had the duke not ordered him to stay with Cecily, Piers would have remained.

“I hope my plan works,” she said to her ladies.

“No one would dare to touch you, Your Grace,” Beatrice spoke up from behind, her hand entwined in Meg’s. “You look magnificent.”

“The more regal I look, the more respect I shall get,” she said, more hopefully than she felt as she adjusted her spire-high hennin with its azure blue veil. Cecily was a head taller than many of her companions, and she intended to exploit her height and wardrobe to inspire awe in her daring enterprise.

Cecily had told Nurse Anne to clothe her charges in somber clothes as their mother hoped the troops they must surely face would only focus on her and not her young, vulnerable sons.

“Father’s gone now, hasn’t he? And Ned and Edmund?” Dickon asked as they waited for the duchess in their chamber. Nurse Anne nodded.

“What do you mean ‘gone’?” George demanded, but stopped as Cecily entered. Even Dickon was lost for words when she appeared in the doorway, resplendent in her purple mantle over dark blue gown, her magnificent sapphire necklace sparkling at her throat.

Quietly she told the dumbfounded George of the flight. Kneeling between the boys, she took a hand in each of hers and smiled encouragingly. “Are you ready to embark on an adventure?”

George was dubious. “An ad…adventure, Mam? What kind of adventure?”

“We shall go to the king and prevail upon his mercy. He will not harm us, I am sure of it.”

“’Tis the best plan, George,” Dickon assured his incredulous brother. “I heard it all last night when I couldn’t sleep…”

“And you didn’t wake me?” George cried, pummeling Dickon. “How dare you?”

“Enough!” Cecily pulled the boys apart. “This is not the time to fight. I know this is a shock, George, but you must listen to me carefully. If I have my two strong boys with me, I think I can be as brave as any warrior as we go to find the king. Do you think you can be brave with me?” she asked.

Dickon’s heart was thumping. What was his mother thinking? Surely not to walk through the town to the king’s pavilion pitched high on Whitcliff Hill? How could he tell her that all the shouting and screaming he could hear from the chamber window and the smoke rising over the castle walls frightened him. He was ashamed of his fear until he looked across at George and saw the terror on his brother’s face as well. He forced his legs to stop trembling and nodded at his mother. “I can try,” he whispered.

George drew himself up and in a steady voice said, “Me, too.”

“Then let us join the others in the great hall. Come, boys.”

Once there, Cecily marshaled her women, Meg among them, and straightened a headdress here, tweaked a cloak there. Looking around, she suddenly demanded: “Where is Doctor LeMaitre? Dear God, do not tell me she has already gone to tend the wounded?”

Beatrice nodded. “She left early, Your Grace.”

Cecily called to Piers. “Master Taggett, be so kind as to go and find Doctor LeMaitre. Quickly!” Piers nodded and went in search of the physician. Satisfied, Cecily took her boys’ hands and with deliberation began her journey to face she knew not what.

If ever there were a time to attribute great courage to Cecily of York, it was now.

It was less than half a mile to the market square, but when Dickon chose to remember their slow march that day, it was dreamlike. Much of it became buried under more vivid memories, like recognizing Constance’s screams from behind the castle keep and his mother’s cry of anguish when the doctor was heard no more.

“God rest her soul,” Cecily had whispered, the words informing Dickon their dear friend must be dead. He whimpered. True, he had witnessed death first-hand with the young billman, but he had not known the lad. He knew and loved Constance and had understood then he would never see her again. She would never sit by his bedside cooling his fevered head with a sweet-smelling cloth; never tell him tales of her time at the university in Salerno or of her childhood in Paris; nor help him catch butterflies; nor show him how to recognize poisonous herbs; nor make a poultice for the boils that often plagued him. He had swallowed a sob. Dickon grieved for her until his childhood memories faded over the years.

Dickon would also never forget how filthy soldiers fingered his hair, stuck out their tongues in his face, reached out and pulled at Cecily’s gown making disgusting sucking sounds. “Whore! Bitch!” they called, but proud Cecily walked on, eyes fixed on the castle gate, ignoring the taunts and insults.

Somewhere along the perilous path out of the castle grounds, Dickon had sensed a mysterious shield around his mother, George, and him. The soldiers had suddenly looked almost afraid and stepped away. He peeked up at his mother and, seeing a strange glow on her face, knew she had felt it, too. Was an angel guarding them? Nay, it must have been his imagination he would later tell himself, but at the time it lessened his fear.

Cecily had finally reached the sanctuary of the Market Cross and stood firm, surrounded by bloodthirsty enemy soldiers, before King Henry himself arrived on his huge warhorse, parting his troops and confronting Cecily. Dickon remembered holding his breath. Had his father been right? Would the king show mercy? Or were they all going to die? It had been a huge gamble based on York’s trust in King Henry’s honor and the chivalric code they all lived by.

Meeting King Henry for the first time was another vivid memory Dickon carried from that day. Hoping no one would notice him, Dickon had dared to look up into the face of his sovereign. Doesn’t every child imagine his king to look like a warrior or a god? This king looked like a plain man with a kind face. Why, didn’t everyone know that kings should lead their armies, brandishing a weapon, and boasting of victory—someone like King Arthur or even his father? But Dickon had thought this reedy, delicate man looked as though he would have preferred to be anywhere else, even at home in bed. Dickon felt profoundly disappointed. He had heard his father and uncle describe the man as weak, lily-livered, and easily led, but not until that moment had Dickon believed it.

But then the king’s eye had fallen on Dickon’s tear-stained face and his mouth had hardened, and at once Dickon feared for his life. It was in that moment Henry suddenly seemed to awaken to his kingship and, holding himself erect on his horse, he addressed his men: “Turn around!” he thundered. “Disband and return to camp!” It had felt like a miracle to the small boy watching in terror.

Cecily was on her knees, which had finally given way after her brave stand. Henry moved his horse closer, and Dickon stepped forward to protect his mother and glared up at Henry. Henry’s mouth softened into a kind smile, and it was then Dickon knew they were no longer in danger.

“I shall not harm you or your children, Duchess Cecily, you have my word.” The king had stretched out his hand to the courageous woman. “Rise and let us take you all to the safety of my pavilion.” He called to Cecily’s brother-in-law, “Buckingham, take charge of Her Grace and her children. We shall confer at the camp.”

King Henry wheeled his courser around and, with his escort, left the square. They were soon followed by Buckingham’s party, and the little procession, believing their ordeal was over, made its way down the hill, past burning houses, dead and distraught townsfolk, and gawping, drunken soldiers.

But one last tragedy was to play out for the York family that morning.

An anguished cry from the city gate halted the escort’s progress over the Teme to the royal pavilion. Recognizing the voice, Dickon swiveled around from his seat in front of a knight and watched in horror as Piers Taggett, his friend and champion, staggered down the hill to reach them, a crimson river streaming from a bloodied stump where his arm should have been. Dickon had stared for a second, gruesomely fascinated, but then without warning had leaned over the knight’s leg and vomited onto the bridge. Ashamed, he lifted his face again only to see his mother catch the faithful falconer before he fell, his back shot full of arrows and giving him the grotesque appearance of a human hedgehog. Cecily had cradled Piers in her arms, tears running unchecked down her cheeks and onto his dear, now-ashen face, while Dickon’s escort urged on his horse to spare the boy more misery.

Even though there had been no battle in the full sense of the word, it had been Dickon’s first taste of war, and he would never forget what he experienced at Ludlow. Apart from the horrors perpetrated by the unruly royal troops, Piers and Constance had been taken from him in the space of an hour; he had not known when he would see his father and brothers again; and, looming in the frightened mind of a young boy was the question: where would he be on the morrow? He would forget the small details, like how he had asked the hardened soldier holding him, “May we go home to Fotheringhay now?” and the knight’s response of, “You’ll go somewhere, young ’un, but His Grace the King will decide where,” or that he had wet the bed that night.

King Henry had decided that Dickon’s Aunt Anne of Buckingham’s residence of Maxstoke would be the place where the attainted duke of York’s family should reside. It would be a long time before Dickon saw Fotheringhay or knew peace again.

That first night in the Buckinghams’ country residence, Dickon’s nightmares began. The horror of Ludlow was revisited in scene upon terrifying scene of leering faces, bloody entrails, screaming horses, hands that mauled his mother, and the vivid image of Piers Taggett lurching towards him waving his gory, shredded stub of an arm and crying out to the boy to save him. Then the ashen face of the devoted servant dissolved into the jeering face of Andrew Trollope who came towards him, shouting, “I have come to get you, Dickon of York… You traitor!” Dickon screamed so loudly, he woke himself up. George leaped from the bed and cried out for help. At once the room was filled with people Dickon loved; Nurse Anne was first to comfort him, but in a second, she gave up her place to Cecily, who gathered the boy in her arms, stroked his damp hair and shushed him. Meg sat on his other side and took his hand. That role used to be Constance’s, and Dickon was once more reminded he would never see her sweet face again and renewed his sobbing.

With all this attention, who could blame George for being resentful. George didn’t have dreams, he had proudly told Meg one day. “They are for girls,” he had declared. Now, George watched sullenly in the shadows as Dickon was fawned over.

“Babykins,” he muttered.

“Mam! I don’t want to go! Don’t let them take me, please.” Dickon protested one blustery day in March after six months in Buckingham’s custody. “I want to stay with you.”

The hand that caressed his head abruptly stopped. “You are a son of York, Richard,” Cecily said, upsetting him even more by using his proper name. “Behave like one!” Inside she was praying she wouldn’t lose her nerve, pull him close and cry herself. As though fate had not dealt the poor woman enough blows in the past six months, she was to lose her boys as well. Edward had entreated the Archbishop of Canterbury to take his brothers under the cleric’s wing at Lambeth and continue their education. All very charitable, but uncharitably Cecily railed silently at Ned. Couldn’t he have foreseen the pain it would inflict on her in this miserable captivity with her estranged sister.

“I will go gladly.” George’s voice interrupted her thoughts and she turned to him, surprised. “If Ned believes this is the best for us, then we would be ungrateful not to accept.” He gave his mother an angelic smile. “Besides,” he added, “this place is tiresome, and Dickon and I would dearly like to see London.” Dickon opened his mouth to protest, but George’s scowl stayed him.

“Nicely said, George.” Cecily nodded her approval; she could always count on George to be tractable. His benevolent parent somehow never saw the darker side of his nature, or how his smile would turn into a sulk as soon as his mother’s attention wavered from him, which it did now as she turned to Dickon. “Run and find Nurse Anne and have her ready your belongings. And use your kerchief not your sleeve to wipe your nose, Dickon. His Grace the Archbishop will think you have been brought up in the gutter.”

Archbishop? Were they to be shut up with monks? His youthful imagination conjured a damp abbey or monastery, where the archbishop would surely keep them in cheerless cells, make them wear hair shirts and only let them out to pray and learn their lessons. Dickon had seen the meagre quarters of the Yorks’ chaplain and had spent nights staying in abbeys along the road to Ludlow. He knew how clerics lived, and he was determined to resist Ned’s edict one way or another.

“How could Ned do this to us?” Dickon was incredulous as he and George made their way to their chamber. “I like it here. We have a tutor; we are doing our lessons. I thought you liked it too.”

George shrugged. “I like it well enough.”

“Then I don’t understand. Why did you tell Mother you will be glad to leave?”

“Because that is what Mother wanted to hear, you boil-brain. ’Tis easier to be charming, Dickon. The sooner you learn that, the more you will get to do what you want. Besides, I do want to go to London.”

Dickon stopped his brother. “To an old priest’s dreary abbey? Have you eaten toadstools that have caused madness? Well, you can go, but I am not going,” and he marched ahead. “I’ll run away,” he shouted. “That will show them!”

“And anger our father?” George called after him. “He will be coming home soon, you know.”

Dickon turned. “How do you know?”

“You read the ballad. All of England is waiting for him to return—remember?

‘Send home, most gracious Lord Jesu most benign,

Send home thy true blood unto his proper vein,

Richard, duke of York…’” George recited.

Dickon nodded, but, although he desperately wanted to do something daring like run away, he was reluctant to disappoint his father. Oddly, he had fewer qualms about disappointing his mother. The chance never came, alas, for the boys learned they were to leave on the morrow, and Cecily, wanting to spend every last hour with her sons, did not let them out of her sight.

And so, once more Dickon found himself hoisted in front of a Stafford knight and bidding a forced farewell to a home he had come to know. Part of him thrilled to see London, but the child in him longed for familiar surroundings with the people he loved and, most of all, where he felt safe.

The rain was unrelenting that summer and even now was running down the tiny leaded panes of the Lambeth Palace windows in depressing rivulets. Despite the weather, however, the sun had shone on the house of York when Edward of March, Richard of Warwick and Richard of Salisbury—dubbed the lords of Calais—had landed in June and marched with their army to a welcoming London.

When will we ever leave this dreary place, Dickon wondered that day, oblivious of the priceless tapestries hanging on the burnished, walnut-paneled walls around him, the richly colored Turkey carpet covering the table, and the finely carved furniture. Dickon had been wrong about the penury. It seemed the archbishop lived in greater luxury than all but the wealthiest of nobles despite protestations by the country’s premier churchman to show charity to the poor. The archbishop was a kind man, and the boys had not been as confined as they had feared. It also appeased Dickon’s resentment of his oldest brother’s decision to send them there that Edward came to see them often and brought them sweetmeats and news from across the river in Westminster.

“Ignavi coram morte quidem animam trahunt, audaces autumn illam no saltem advertunt,” droned the dry tutor, Timothy Birdsall, his rheumy eyes peering at his well-worn copy of Caesar’s De Bello Gallico. “My lord Richard, I pray you translate.”

Dickon sighed. He abhorred Latin almost as much as he loved archery, and he chewed the end of his quill trying to find anything that gave him a clue about the sentence. He suddenly noticed George was kicking him under the table, and looked up. George mouthed across at him: “Cowards fear…”

“My lord, you are not to help him,” Birdsall admonished. “Try again, Dickon,” and he repeated the sentence.

“Cowards are fearful of death, but the brave never take notice of it,” a voice from the doorway broke in, and the two boys gave a shout of joy. “Ned!” they chorused, and ran to greet their grinning brother.

The tutor tut-tutted and closed his text with a snap. He knew when he was beaten; no one of his stature would dare point out to one of the lords of Calais that the lesson was not finished.

“Your translation is correct, my lord,” Birdsall simpered as he eased past the six-foot-three-inch earl of March and disappeared along the passage. “The boys would do well to heed it.”

Edward laughed heartily. “My brave brothers have no need, Master Tutor. We Yorks do not even know what cowardice means. We are as brave as Julius Caesar, are we not boys?”

“Aye, Ned!” George cried, gripping Ned’s outstretched hand. Dickon hung back, his eyes full of admiration for his magnificent brother, who appeared to have a small cut above his eye. Ever since Master Birdsall had begun using the conqueror’s Gallic wars’ exploits as his text, Dickon had conjured an image of the great Caesar, and he looked exactly like Ned—but in a toga.

This was not the first time Edward had come to visit since his arrival from Calais, and the citizens of London spoke warmly of the solicitous young earl. Family matters to him, they thought, just as it does to us common folk. Indeed, Edward had assured his mother he would keep an eye on the boys, and he was true to his promise. However, the unrest in England had prompted the archbishop to confine his charges to Lambeth and had only once taken them by boat to show them Westminster Hall and the great abbey, directly across the river from his palace. They still had not set foot in the city of London, two miles down the Thames on its northern bank. Dickon wished there were not such a sharp bend in the river that prevented even a glimpse of St. Paul’s far-off spire when they went fishing along the south bank.

“I wonder how brave Caesar was when he faced death at the hands of his friends?” George mused. “It must have been worse to die at their hands than at his enemies.”

Ned laughed. “What a morbid thought, brother. But aye, the final thrust from Brutus must have come as a shock. You will learn that no good can come from being a tyrant.” He leaned in close. “But let us not contemplate such a degrading death today, because I have good news for you.” The boys listened eagerly. “Your uncle, cousin, and I recently won an important victory outside Northampton. Did you hear of it?”

The boys shook their heads. “No one tells us anything,” George complained. “’Tis as though we are on the other side of the world, not just the other side of the Thames. My lord archbishop still tethers us close, more’s the pity.”

“Is the battle where you hurt your eye, Ned?” astute Dickon asked. “What happened?”

And for the next half an hour—which was exactly the time it had taken for the Yorkists to win—Ned regaled the boys with those battle details he thought suitable for such young ears, including a nick from a shortsword when he had inadvisedly pushed up his visor to see more clearly. “A lesson learned, boys. For ’tis better to have limited vision through a visor than end up with no vision at all.”

Dickon had listened transfixed, as he could not imagine facing those hideous soldiers of his dreams. He had to ask: “Were you frightened, Ned?”

“Certes, I was, little one,” came the answer, “but once you have been trained to fight, as I have, you know what to do to stay alive.”

“When will Father come?” Dickon ventured. “And what is the news from Mother?”

Ned sat back on his chair and patted his knee. Dickon slid onto it although he feared George would taunt him as soon as Ned left. George was easy to read, even for one as young as Dickon.

“We—your uncle Salisbury, our cousin Warwick and I—are laying the path for Father’s return. Did I remember to tell you that at the end of the battle, we captured the king in his tent and brought him back here to London?” He grinned. “Aye, I do not lie. The king is in our custody—he is our hostage now. We have sent word to our lord Father, and we hope this means he will leave Ireland soon.”

“We met the king, didn’t we, George. In his pavilion at Ludlow. I hope you have been kind to him, for he was kind to us,” Dickon told Edward.

“Pah!” George was unimpressed. “How can you say he was kind? He sent us to that dull Maxstoke, didn’t he?”

“Mother said that was the queen, not the king,” Dickon retorted. He was impatient to find out more. “Where is the king? Is he in prison, Ned? I hope you haven’t put him in chains.”

Edward laughed. “Certes, he is not in chains. He is being well watched in the royal apartments in Westminster. He can live the way he is accustomed to, but he cannot leave, ’tis all. As our hostage, he may prove a useful bargaining tool.”

Dickon shook his head. “Bargaining tool? What’s that?”

George enlightened him, eager to shine in front of Ned. “If the queen would attack London, our uncle Salisbury could threaten to kill the king unless she retreats.” He laughed. “Not even Margaret of Anjou would dare put the king in jeopardy. Am I right, Ned?”

Ned chuckled. “You are in so many words, George.”

“Kill the king?” Dickon was horrified. “In cold blood? Would you really do that? But he is such a nice man,” and then remembered, “and he is the Lord’s anointed.”

“George has painted the blackest picture, never fear. ’Twill not come to that,” Ned assured the earnest young boy. “Besides, I have better news. Mother and Meg are released and coming to London. You will see them at the end of the month, I promise,” Edward said, reminding himself to carry out his mother’s wishes to procure a house for them all. “We shall be together again.”

Dickon could not suppress a whoop of joy, while George muttered under his breath: “Praise be to God. No more Latin.”

Dickon had lost count of how many beds he had slept in since leaving Fotheringhay almost a year before. But he didn’t care; Mother and Meggie were coming that very day to the handsome Falstoff mansion that Ned had rented south of the Thames in Southwark. Dickon and George had been graced with their big brother’s presence every day since they moved into the comfortable, spacious house, with their own servants to attend them.

What was more astonishing to the boy, who often wondered if anyone ever noticed him, was that Edward did not treat Dickon with any less consideration than he did George. In those days before the arrival of his mother and sister, Dickon affirmed a lifelong devotion to his oldest brother. No one could speak a bad word of Ned without Dickon coming fiercely to his defense. Certainly he did not understand the innuendo whispered about the handsome, virile young earl of March that he could not keep his pestle in control when any passing-fair girl crossed his path. Dickon wasn’t sure why Edward needed a pestle, and, as he had never seen Ned with one, he was certain the whisperers were wrong about him owning one, and he would tell them so in all earnestness. There was no one to explain to a nearly eight-year-old why this brotherly defense caused such amusement. George, at eleven, was not about to reveal his own ignorance and instead laughed at Dickon along with the rest.

“Do you have a pestle, Ned?” Dickon asked one day, and Edward had looked puzzled.

“What an odd question. Why would I need one? ’Tis a handheld tool with a rounded end used to pound herbs and spices in a smooth-sided bowl…”

Indignant, Dickon frowned. “I know what it is, Ned. I have just never seen you use one. Why do people say you cannot keep yours under control?”

Ned stared at the serious but pleasant young face, its slate-gray eyes too dark to read, and then he grinned, and then he laughed, a throaty, genuine sound quite unlike their father’s extraordinary neigh. Ned and Dickon had been alone that day angling on the riverbank, with George a hundred yards away casting his line with a lad he had met from Southwark village.

“My dear Dickon,” Edward said, wiping his eyes. “This is the best laugh I have had for a month. Nay, do not look so chagrined. You were right to ask, and as I am acting as your father for the foreseeable future, perhaps I should explain the joys—and tribulations—of being a man.”

And so with the gleaming, whitewashed walls of the Tower standing sentinel across the river, a universally awkward conversation took place that left Dickon more than adequately educated but frightened enough to decide he would just as soon avoid the opposite sex altogether. Ned had a twinge of guilt that perhaps the boy was a little young for the facts of life—a notion his Father verified in no uncertain terms when the topic came up a few months later—but at the time, Ned’s confidence had led him to believe the instruction had been for the best.

Dickon had had his nose pressed against the upstairs solar window of Falstoff Place most of the morning waiting, while George pretended nonchalance and played chess with one of the gentleman attendants. But the pawns went flying as soon as Dickon squealed, “They are come, George. Mother and Meggie are here!” and he was right behind his brother, running down the staircase through the great hall and out onto the front steps of the cobbled courtyard.

Edward was already there watching as a groom opened the door to the cumbersome carriage. A huge wolfhound, glad to be set free from such a confined space, bounded out, pulling Meg on his leash behind him.

“Down, Ambergris!” Edward called crossing the courtyard in three long strides to take hold of his ecstatic hound. “And who is this beautiful young woman you have brought with you?” Meg raised an eyebrow and said archly, “You cannot flatter me as easily as you do other women, Ned. Come, give me a kiss.” She did not protest, however, when her brother picked her up as though she were still a child and bussed her cheek.

“Pray help me out of here!” Cecily called to her son, her tall, still-lithe frame filling the doorway of the carriage, “I swear every bone in my body is broken.” Edward let Margaret go and lifted his mother like so much goose down, setting her gently on the ground. Cecily gazed up at her oldest son, his gold-red hair curling nonchalantly to his shoulders and his handsome features all smiles. Sweet Mother of God, I sent him away a boy at Ludlow and he has returned a man, she thought. Ruefully, she acknowledged that the first battle would always do that to a youth. Edward had tasted blood at Northampton and had acquitted himself well.

“God’s greeting to you, Mother,” Ned said, kissing her hand, “we are all delighted to see you and to welcome you to your new home away from home.”

“Do not remind me. I should be at Baynard’s,” she grumbled. Among the confiscations of York property after Richard’s attainder, the loss of her favorite Baynard’s Castle by the river was one of the bitterest for Cecily. Looking at the new house, she was not displeased, but before she could compliment Ned on his choice, she was almost knocked over by her two younger sons.

“My dearest boys,” Cecily cried, bending down and embracing them both, “how we have missed you. Look how you have grown!”

“We missed you, too,” George told her, “but Ned has come to see us every day, has he not, Dickon?”

Dickon nodded happily. How glad he was his family was together again. “And he takes us fishing, and,” he told Cecily in whispered confidence, “he took us to a bear-baiting. I didn’t much care for it.”

“I should think not!” Cecily was appalled. “Edward, you and I need to have a conversation.” When Edward looked sheepish, Dickon flushed scarlet. Had he betrayed Ned? He gave his big brother a sidelong glance, but Ned was already smiling at his mother and offering her his arm.

“Come, Mother, let me show you your new home.” Cecily took his arm gladly, and when she reached out her hand to Dickon the boy’s joy was complete. He had been singled out by his mother for once, and he reveled in the gesture. He stole a glance at George to see if George might realize how it felt to be left out for a change, but Dickon’s small victory was lost on George, who was wrapped in his much-missed sister’s warm embrace.

Disappointed but not daunted, Dickon held tight to his Mother’s hand and tucked the precious moment into his heart.

The atmosphere at Falstoff’s Place in those first two weeks of September was as charged as in an audience awaiting the first lines of a play, and the boys and their sister were left to their own devices as messengers and other visitors from London, Westminster and farther afield came and went in rapid succession. Ned had set up the York headquarters at the house, and even my lord of Warwick had crossed the bridge to confer with him. Dickon was a little afraid of his cousin, but the earl was always quick to tousle the boy’s hair and ask if his archery was improving.

“Am I still to go to Cousin Richard’s household for military training?” Dickon dared to ask his mother once. “Father talked about it. And even the earl himself talked about it at Ludlow to me and to Captain Troll…”

He shut his mouth quickly before naming the faithless commander. He still could not understand how the man could have betrayed his father or his impressive cousin of Warwick. He, Dickon, would be proud to fight for this superior knight—after his father and Ned, to be sure.

Dickon’s knightly training was low on Cecily’s list of priorities, and she brushed the question off with a “wait until your Father comes home” response. But she was curious about the boy’s enthusiasm. “Are you sure you are ready to be a soldier, Dickon. What about your nightmares?”

“Oh, those,” Dickon scoffed. “I don’t have those anymore. I’m nearly eight now! I just want to learn from the best knight, and our cousin of Warwick is the best, isn’t he?”

Since the arrival of the lords of Calais in England only three months before and the capture of the king at Northampton, Richard, earl of Warwick, was gaining a reputation far greater than his father’s—and dare one say, even that of his uncle of York’s. The Neville descendants of Ralph of Westmorland and Joan Beaufort, which included Dickon’s mother, had been endowed with taller than average stature, intelligence and ambition. However, of them all, only the thirty-two-year-old Warwick had that same combination coupled with an uncanny understanding of politics, an imperious presence in the field, and a contrasting generosity towards his inferiors that enabled him to become one of English history’s most revered figures. He had already eclipsed his important uncle and father in the hearts and minds of the people.

“If you have to learn from someone, then my nephew would certainly be my choice.” Cecily smiled at her youngest. “But you know, Ned is fast catching up to him.” It was clear to her that eighteen-year-old Edward had earned Warwick’s respect during the past months in Calais and now in England, and the two men had become fast friends.

Quiet and observant, Dickon, too, had noticed the friendship grow between the cousins in those early days of September 1460 and wished he had a friend he could trust. It had to be said that he had not stayed in one place long enough to make a real friend, and it must have seemed to Dickon that as soon as he counted on someone—like Piers Taggett or Constance—they were taken from him. There was always Nurse Anne, but she was more like an old aunt than a friend. It could have been George—and indeed they had their good times, but after the Traveller incident, Dickon had decided that his brother was simply untrustworthy.

Nevertheless, the two boys had only each other for playmates during those autumnal days in Southwark, and, on yet another rainy day, they were competing with hoop-rolling in the great hall when a man arrived wearing the York murrey and blue and demanded to be taken to her grace, the duchess. Ambergris bounded after him as the steward admonished the boys to stop their sport and marched the messenger up the staircase.

“Stay, Ambergris!” Meg commanded, and astonishingly the huge hound skidded to a halt on the rushes and sat down obediently in front of her. The three siblings gathered around the dog at the bottom of the stairs wondering at the urgency of this particular messenger’s mission. When they heard their mother’s cry of excitement, they guessed at once.

“Father has come!” Meg exclaimed. “It must be.” And she lifted her voluminous skirts and started up the stairs. Dickon and George grasped each other’s shoulders and were jumping up and down making Ambergris bark when Cecily appeared at the head of the staircase.

The lines of worry and the pain of the past year’s separation had fled her now radiant face as she looked down on her children. Dickon had always known his mother was the most beautiful woman in the world, but now she seemed to glow. “Your father is at Chester, my dears, praise be to God,” Cecily called to them. “Aye, ’tis worthy of jumping for joy.” She laughed like a girl, her cheeks flushing. Dickon was too young to recognize love, but her radiance moved him.

After seeing his mother safely onto the road west to meet her husband, Ned sat his siblings down one evening and prepared them for their father’s homecoming. He explained what had led up to the retreat at Ludlow, and why it was now time for their father to assert his position with the king once and for all. It took a patient Ned to draw up a chart of the Plantagenet family tree and show how, in fact, York’s claim to the throne of England was stronger than the Lancastrian Henry’s.

“So Father should be king?” Meg had asked after studying the makeshift chart. “But Henry is God’s anointed, and as Father swore fealty to him, he cannot wear the crown. Is that not so, Ned?”

“Aye, Meg, and we Yorks do not break our vows. As he has said, he has no ambition to wear the crown.” More’s the pity, Edward secretly thought. “Indeed, all these years, Father has attempted and failed to remove the bad counselors governing England because our saintly king is too weak to deny them. Each time he has tried to take his place as Henry’s chief counselor, the others have poisoned the king against him with the help of Queen Margaret, who has more aggression in her little finger than her husband in his entire body. ’Tis she who rules Henry and thus the council, and she fears Father’s claim to the throne.”

“Why does Father not simply tell Parliament that he is the rightful king?” George demanded. “Then we would be heirs to the crown—not that lily-livered Edouard of Lancaster.”

The boy was always thinking of himself, Edward had noticed during his visits; it was one of George’s least charming traits. It was Dickon who was growing into the more reliable younger brother.

“As I said only a few minutes ago, George, Father will not break his oath to the king,” Ned insisted, attempting to curb George’s ambitions. “Besides which, we all wish to prove to the English people that despite our attainders, we are still loyal subjects of the crown. We are not traitors. We have been wronged yet wish to do right. If we were the villains Queen Margaret would have everyone believe we are, why then, after our victory at Northampton, did we not simply kill the king and take the throne? Instead, Henry is still our liege lord, and now, from a position of strength, Father can return to give the king obeisance and persuade him to be rid of the likes of Exeter and Somerset for the good of England.”

Dickon had been trying hard to follow all of this. Yearning for Ned’s approval and not wanting to be thought ignorant, he braved: “Why will the king believe Father this time?”

“A clever question, little man. If you remember, we hold the king hostage. If Father was so ambitious for the crown, why is the king not dead?”

Dickon nodded slowly. “So, it is his loyalty that makes our father the greater man.”

Ned’s approving hand had come down hard on Dickon’s back, almost knocking the boy off his stool. “You have the measure of it, Dickon. Ambition is a fine thing, but it cannot override duty. We, as princes of the royal blood, have a duty to England first, the king, then family, and our own ambition last. ’Twas what Father taught Edmund and me, but as he is not here to teach you, I will. ’Tis what we must all abide by.”

These words would nag Dickon during his brother’s lifetime of disavowing them, especially when it came to Edward’s personal desires.

After more than a week, Meg was almost more impatient to have Cecily return than her beloved father as she found playing mother to her brothers had almost, she told her attendant Beatrice, driven her to uncork a flagon or two. Nurse Anne was getting too old to run after two boys, one of whom, she believed, should have been sent away for his knightly training long before now. And as far as she was concerned, the lads had suffered from the lack of discipline the customary military training would have provided.

“Boys at this age have no other objective than to hit each other; climb trees; throw stones at the poor crows; roll around on the grass, soiling their nice clothes; filch food from under the cook’s nose; and utter war whoops just as one is carrying something fragile,” Nurse Anne grumbled to Beatrice. “I dropped a water pitcher last week when one of them jumped out at me as I was leaving the pantry.”

The two servants were thus relieved to see the earl of March arrive on his chestnut palfrey that tenth day of October and order his brothers to deck themselves out in their finery. No one had noticed that it was almost a year to the day since Richard of York had fled from Ludlow.

“We are going to join our father’s procession into London,” he told the boys. “I am sorry, Meg, but…”

“But what, pray?” Meg countered, irritated. “You will not ride from here without me.”

Edward chuckled. “I pity your poor husband, sister. However, I have not made provision for a horse for you, so I am afraid…”

“I shall ride pillion behind George,” Meg interrupted, “and you can take Dickon up with you. He’s small enough to sit in front, and there’s an end to it,” and she ran off to change into something more festive, leaving Ned with his mouth agape.

It would be a glorious homecoming, Ned told them en route to the Newgate, as Parliament was sitting at Westminster, the king was virtually a prisoner in the royal apartments above, and their father would at last receive the honor and respect due him.

The sun had finally returned for the York siblings as they rode over London Bridge and through the city to be on hand when their father and his retinue of five hundred men entered the gates, and to Dickon seated in front of his magnificent brother, all seemed right with their world.