The Other Elizabeth

Chapter XXXII: February 1461

Chapter XXXII: February 1461 

Grafton, Northamptonshire, England

It was thought that Anthony and I mayhap would return back to reside at Middleton, once the battle was lost and won, and we had enough money to continue the building my Father had started, so that we could live there accordingly. Anthony had gone back to Middleton in the first dubious month of the New Year, but to use the money to raise more troops. For the fight is not over.

Every person thought it was, now that the poor Duke of York is dead, God rest his soul, but his son is apparently ready to take up his father's cause, and avenge his and his brother Edmund's gruesome deaths. Edward, the youth I strolled with at Ludlow, who proposed to me, is a young man prepared to clash swords with the Lancastrian army, led by Queen Marguerite's ally, that obscure Welshman by the name of Owen Tudor, the stepfather of King Henry, and more unruly Scottish troops.

I shudder to think of myself as the new Duchess of York- if Edward's proposal had been in all seriousness. I think of the Dowager Duchess Cecily, sending her other sons to exile abroad. The grief I would have had to cope with... And that leads me to think of Lady Isabel, who has lost the brother who was so dear to her, her only close blood kin left, and who has also lost her son. For her Edward Bourchier, the other Edward whom I grew up with, and Henry and I regarded as his baby brother, is dead too. Henry's own little brother, slain on the cusp of manhood, my own brother-in-law. So much York blood has been shed. Isabel has lost two grown sons now, a brother, and a nephew. I remember Edward fondly- always talking of knights and battles in glorification when he was but young, yet he died on the losing side, doubtless bloodied, muddied, his body marred and twisted. No such glory found there.

And I sit alone in my bedchamber. 'Twas not how I dreamt the beginning of my new marriagebed- but, what, indeed truly did I expect? That Anthony would not be away for weeks, fighting? He survived the last battle. But shall one claim, such as the last claimed Edward Bourchier and his cousin Edmund, men the same age as him. The Duke of York made the fatal error of coming out of his castle of Sandal, to find the Lancastrians greedily waiting to slaughter him and his son. Will roles be reversed; will Anthony walk out another stronghold and find Edward of York, ready for revenge? Alas, York's ally Salisbury is now gone too- murdered by commoners such as my Father was, as he tried to escape his gaol at Pomfret. I should find satisfaction that the man who cornered my Father into the Tower has died by the same hands, but I do not. The English soil is spattered by so much noble blood, and I have no heart for revenge, just for the vicious warfare to end. For Anthony to come home to me safely.

He writes little- for if his letters are intercepted, he could be an unknowing Anthony Trollope for the Yorkists. There is naught I can do but to toss and turn in my bed, as the two sides battle in my head and heart. If York wins, Anthony and I fall with Lancaster. If Lancaster wins, we are in favour, but my hopes die of having a more just government, not controlled by another set of favourites keen to manipulate the weak Henry. I pace up and down, wringing my hands. I wait. I wait. I wait for news.

Anthony must return to me, as his father has to Jacquetta unfailing, from every battle he has been in. I need him- for how could I be married thrice in so little time, and the last marriage undoubtedly loveless? For I truly do feel so lovingly inclined towards him- he is clever, gallant, handsome, and as good with pen and paper as I hope he is with a sword or whatever they use these days. He knows me so well, as demonstrated by that note. How wondrous it is to have someone who truly understands me. He must know how I worry- he must know he cannot fail to return to me.

"Lyzbeth, Lyzbeth, wake!" I groan sleepily as Kate's little hands tug harshly at my coverlet. Why must she wake me when I would prefer to lay abed? I rub my eyes.