The Red Rose of Anjou - Plaidy Jean. Страница 69

‘I would like to know that he is safe.’

‘You cannot turn back. Come, Jasper, is it to be retreat and fight another day for us or certain death?’

Jasper saw the wisdom of flight. His father would take care of himself.

At that moment when Jasper with Wiltshire was riding with all speed into the Welsh mountains, Owen Tudor was surrounded by soldiers. His horse had been wounded and was lying beside him, and Owen knew that this time his luck had failed him.

He was brought to Edward, who studied him sardonically.

‘Well, Owen Tudor, you have not been so fortunate this time!’

Owen smiled that smile which was still attractive enough to charm. ‘My lord, the fortunes of war are unpredictable.’

‘Perhaps your fate is far from unpredictable.’

Owen felt a tremor of dismay. Was Edward telling him that he would have his head?

‘You took up arms against my father,’ said Edward.

‘My lord, I took up arms for my brother, the King.’

‘Ah, Tudor, you are very proud of the connection.’

‘My lord, are you not proud of your connections with Kings? Is that not what this war is all about?’

‘It is to set the rightful King on the throne and to put an end to bad government.’

‘And to uphold the rights of the true King.’

Owen was too sure of himself.

‘Take him away,’ said Edward.

They marched to Hereford where the people gave a welcome to the victorious army. People came out of their houses to see Edward of whom they had heard so much. How the women loved him! He exulted in their admiration. They wanted a King Like him—a virile adventurer, a handsome charmer; they might admire Henry for a saint but he was not the man to enchant them.

They would give up Henry tomorrow—these people of Hereford—for the sake of this tall, handsome Plantagenet King.

The prisoners marched with them. He noticed the looks which Owen Tudor attracted. He had an indefinable charm which was there even though he had left his youth behind him. He must have been an extremely handsome man for Queen Katherine to forget her royalty for him.

But it must be the end of him. There should be no mercy shown to any of those who had stood against the White Rose of York.

He himself would witness the execution and when it was done

there should be fresh heads to set on the walls of York and those already there should be taken down and most reverently buried.

Owen did not believe that he was going to die. He knew that the people were gathering in the market square. He knew that they had been promised a spectacle. But he believed something would happen at the last moment to save him. It always had. He had lived a charmed life ever since Queen Katherine had noticed him in her household and had fallen in love with him. The memory of those days would live with him forever. Sometimes he believed that Katherine watched over him from Heaven...him and their children. Those long days of secret happiness now seemed as real as they ever had.

He had never ceased to love her. He had worshipped her, revered her and had taught their children to do the same. Edmund was dead now, but how proud she would have been of little Henry, her grandson! Owen had taught the child to love her too.

Oh Katherine, he thought, I cannot die yet. There is much to be done. Something will happen at the last moment. I shall go out there to my execution but there will be some miracle. I know it.

The crowds were filling the square. So it had got as far as that. Something will happen, he thought. My time has not yet come.

He was led out into the square with others. There was a hush in the crowd when they saw him. They knew him well. He was the romantic Owen Tudor who had married Queen Katherine, who had loved her and sired her children and in the end she had been snatched from him and died of a broken heart, they said, for love of him.

The women were sad. He was a romantic figure even now that he had lost his youth.

One came forward and cried in a shrill voice: ‘Save Owen Tudor. He is too beautiful to die.’

She was dragged away—poor mad creature, they said.

Even now he could not believe it. Even though he saw the block and the axe and the executioner standing there.

Something will happen. There will be a sign from Heaven. Edward is just allowing this to happen to show me how near I came to losing my head.

There would be a messenger. Stop the execution of Owen Tudor. It would be romantic, dramatic as his life had been since he loved Katherine the Queen.

They were urging him forward. He was now stepping up to the block.

Hurry, hurry or they would be too late.

But no one was coming. There was no one to save Owen Tudor now. He must accept his fate. At last it had come then. Someone had put up a hand and torn off the collar of his red velvet doublet. Now there was no help for it. He must lay his head on the block.

He smiled whimsically at the crowd on whom a great silence had fallen.

‘Ah, my friends,’ he said in a firm voice. ‘This head which you will now see placed on this block at one time was wont to lie in the lap of Queen Katherine.’

The silence was deep. He was urged forward. Then quietly, realizing that this was indeed the end, he laid his head on the block.

###

‘So he is dead,’ said Edward. ‘So perish all traitors. Though he was a man who supported what he believed to be right. No matter. He fought on the wrong side and at Mortimer’s Cross he met his deserts. Let his head be placed on the Market Cross that all may see it.’

So that head which he had in his last breath boasted had rested in Queen Katherine’s lap was placed on the Market Cross. In the morning people were surprised for they found the mad woman they had seen on the previous day seated at the foot of the cross. She had combed Owen’s hair and washed the blood from his face and about the Cross she had set up a hundred lighted candles while she chanted prayers for his soul.

‘There was a man who attracted women to him,’ said Edward musingly. He did himself, but perhaps differently. He wondered fleetingly who would light candles to his memory. But he had his whole life before him and it would be glorious.

He ordered that the woman should not be turned away and the candles should be left burning.

Let Owen go out as he had lived...romantically. He could rejoice in the end of the Tudor but there was still Jasper and he was a man to reckon with.

He was sorry Jasper had escaped. Never mind, one day he would have Jasper’s head where it belonged and that would be the end of these upstart Tudors.

He remembered fleetingly that there was another—a child somewhere. Yes, he had heard of a young Henry Tudor. A baby...nothing more.

He must get Jasper and when he had he could forget that there was a little Henry Tudor somewhere in Wales.

###

Margaret was marching down from the North. She had a mighty army with her. It was true they were undisciplined and that they followed her not so much because they believed in her cause but because she had promised them they would be allowed to loot the towns through which they passed; to march with Margaret meant for Scotsmen that with luck they could carry off a good deal of English valuables over the Border when the fighting was over.

It was the only way that Margaret could amass an army and she had never been very scrupulous about the means.

With her was her little son, Edward—eight years old now and on whom all her hope rested. She was going to bring him up to be a man; he must not be weak and vacillating like his father, but able to win his rights and hold them.

There might be some who criticized her for taking a child with her at such times. But he was going to learn how to fight from childhood; he was going to be a great and ruthless King, for Margaret was sure that ruthlessness was necessary to rule well.