Grace FitzRoy and Cecily Neville were two sides of one deal. On Loveday in the year 1458, when York and Lancaster came together ceremonially to reconcile their two warring factions, the Duke of York and King of England struck a deal. A daughter for...
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MURDER OF RUTLAND
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30th December 1460, Wakefield
The crimson Lancastrian banners billowed in the wind above him. A menacing thing, Edmund thought as he was roughly dragged by his arms towards the enemy camp. He wondered if that's what death felt like, red hot pain. It was what awaited him now, that or months of being a prisoner of war, locked in some muddy dark cell with little to no food.
Either way, he felt strangely reconciled with the idea. There wasn't any fear. Only the deep and dark knowledge that this was, in fact, the end. Whether it be the end of his life or the end of the boy he was up until now, it mattered little. The Edmund Plantagenet that he knew today would perish. Or, at least, what little remained of him.
His father's blood still coated his hands and his armour. It had begun to dry when they'd captured him, barely far enough from the battlefield to be called flight. Whatever Edmund's plan had been when he listened to Salisbury and fled, it was long behind him now. It was something he couldn't pay attention to. Not unless he wanted to make things more difficult.
Salisbury, the man's name rang through his head as his eyes caught on the thing in front of him. Lord Clifford, a man Edmund rarely knew but heard plenty of tales of, stood with his sword unsheathed. Blood splattered his face, and he was grinning viciously. If Edmund had ever allowed himself to wonder what the Devil might've looked like, he was sure he now had the answer.
At Clifford's feet laid a severed head. The head of a man Edmund knew. Salisbury, the name rang through his head again. For the first time since he'd fled, Edmund felt the slightest fear get ahold of him. The look on Salisbury's dead face was stoic, as it often had been when he lived.
Clifford paced back and forth with his eyes trained on Edmund. He looked like a rabid wolf surveying his prey before he attacked. The grin on his face was tight with anger, something that Edmund didn't quite understand. And he didn't think he wanted to. Whoever this man was, whatever he wanted, he would be the one to set out Edmund's judgement today. Death or life, Edmund doubted either one would be good. A strange, murky part of his mind craved the axe, so his existence might be cut short.
"You are Edmund of York, are you not?" Clifford spat out Edmund's name like it was the vilest of poisons. Whatever answer Edmund might've provided was wiped away by the man's fist backhanding him across the face. The men that had previously dragged him there let go and allowed him to fall into the mud. His arm barely caught him before his face plunged into the ground, and his cheek ached distantly. He still couldn't focus on the pain of anything.
When he fled, emotions ravaged his mind and body until he couldn't think. Pain, terror and grief tore into him like the claws of a beast, leaving him a fresh mauled corpse ripe for the taking. Maybe that was why he didn't fight when the men caught him or dragged him here. There was nothing left in him, not a shred of emotion other than a sense of sadness so far away he could barely feel it.
