Anne O'Brien - Queen of the North

I smiled, sat, picked up some stitchery which would occupy my fingers but not my mind. I would wait. I had grown wiser in my time here, my twenty years of marriage from the distant age of eight years. Now I had twenty-eight years’ experience of life and Percy caprice, and knew how to use it well. He would come to me when he had done what needed to be done, until which time I would be a hindrance. Besides, the Earl was also in residence here at Warkworth, the castle much favoured above the stark environs of Alnwick. I did not willingly cross his path except through necessity, when we were both impeccably polite, until the Earl forgot to mind his manners. I never forgot to be discreet, but the Earl enjoyed his reputation for enforcing his will with brutal words. He would be in the courtyard, faster than I could sneeze, to welcome his son. I would wait where I was.

But in anticipation, I sent my women away, to gossip elsewhere.

The minutes passed, the hubbub in the bailey lessening, the tendrils of some fanciful plant growing rapidly under my needle, my thoughts with the man who should be climbing the spiral stair even now. My blood heated a little, my heart quickened its beat a little, but I knew there was no trace of it on my face.

At last.

Booted feet, leaping from one stair to the next. He rarely walked up any flight of stairs, as if speed and hurry had been sprinkled over him in a golden shower on the day that he was born thirty-five years ago. Now he had been absent for two months in his capacity as Warden of the East March, a position he had held for four years, a position that was as important to him as the much-prized sword at his side, but which demanded heavily on his time away from me. It did not surprise me that he ran.

The door was flung back so that it smacked against the wall. There he was, framed in the arch.

‘Elizabeth.’

‘You are right welcome, Harry.’

I was already standing, hands demurely folded, my stitchery tidied away, a suitable decorum for a future Countess of Northumberland, curtseying to the future Earl. Tall and lean, his skin fair, the gift or blight of many who were blessed with his colouring, he was from head to toe a man of action, evidenced by an abrasion on his chin and along his jaw that he had acquired at some point in his journeying. Energy spiked around him as his hair caught fire in a burst of sun through the high window.

‘You look well,’ I observed, any longing to step closer and touch him in the flesh disguised, for I was overcome with a breath of reserve after so long an absence. It always surprised me that it should be so, but his presence in my chamber was overwhelming. ‘In spite of riding over half of the northern reaches of this realm,’ I added.

‘As ever.’

He shrugged, careless of his health, as the door was shut with as much force as it had been pushed open. His eyes were bright, brighter than any jewel. Harry rarely wore jewels. As Warden of the East March, lurching from one affray to another, he rarely saw the need, unless he was summoned to the Royal Court when, grudgingly, he made the effort to play the great magnate.

‘Did you find a suitable mount for Hal?’ I asked. Our son was now of an age to be riding.

‘I did. A sturdy roan with just a hint of mischief in her eye. Hal will enjoy her.’

‘Good. No fighting in the March?’

He was stripping off gloves, letting them fall to the floor at his side along with the soft cloth that protected his throat, then unlatching and unbuckling his brigandine. Once it had been graced with a fine damask finish with even a hint of gold thread at neck and wrist; now the metal plates were bare in places. He needed a new one. It too was abandoned on the tiles, hiding the boldly painted Percy lions that pranced beneath our feet, announcing the ownership of this fortress if any should be in doubt.

‘None worth mentioning. The odd skirmish, to keep the border reivers in check.’

‘So that’s why your garments look as if they have been in the thick of a battle. How fast have you ridden?’

I knew of course without asking him. He beat some of the dust from the tight-fitting sleeves of the gypon. Unfashionable they might be, with not even a nod to the dagged fripperies so much in vogue at Richard’s court, but Sir Henry had as little interest in fashion as in gems, whereas swords and horseflesh moved him to extravagant admiration.

‘Fast.’ His arms were spread wide. ‘Well, my wife. Will you keep your distance? If you don’t mind a muddy smear or two on your fine gown…’

‘It’s the fleas I take exception to.’ I was already walking towards him, my demureness falling away step by step with my diffidence as he grinned and ruffled his hair into sweaty disarray. I would swear that he had the vigour to charm the rats from their nests in the stables. ‘I’ll tolerate a muddy smear on this gown – which is not fine if you looked carefully enough.’

‘Old enough to be cut up for kitchen clouts,’ he mocked for I was never ill-clad. ‘So you were expecting me, in all my dust, and dressed for the occasion.’ He arms were around me, his mouth seeking mine, to my delight. This was where I desired him to be.

But then we were not the only two people in the chamber. The door once more was opened, the voice that broke apart our reunion hoarse with unconcealed enthusiasm.

‘He’s done it. Did you hear?’ The Earl of Northumberland.

‘No,’ Harry said, looking up. ‘Who’s done what? I’ve just ridden in from Berwick.’

His arms had already dropped away from their enveloping. Harry was as much in the dark as I. All my senses were goaded into life. Whatever it was that had been done, and by whom, had stirred the Earl to an unusual heat.

‘He’s here, at Ravenspur. With not enough men to make an impression on a dozen village elders, much less against a King with an army to hand.’ Having announced this news, the Earl thumped the flat of his hand against Harry’s shoulder blade. I, in my own solar, was ignored. ‘Time for us to make a decision, Harry. And smartly.’

Not even flinching at the paternal blow, Harry’s brows levelled. ‘I thought we had already made it.’

‘Making it and doing it are two different bites of the haunch of venison.’ Impatience flickered over the Earl like summer lightning; it had no appreciable effect on my husband who merely stooped to scoop up the items of his discarded clothing, as if he might don them again immediately to answer some call to action necessitated by this arrival at Ravenspur.

‘So we swallow the haunch whole,’ he said, enforcing my impression. ‘Raise the banners, call out the retainers. There, decision made, sir. We set out as soon as we have a force vast enough to make an impression on more than a dozen peasants.’

Which could, I thought, be within a handful of days. Grass did not grow under either of these Percy feet, but where I might have been irritated at my lack of participation in this planning, my interest was piqued. Here was something of import. Another Scottish incursion? But Ravenspur was south of where we were at Warkworth, on the east coast, far below Berwick. So not the Scots. And whoever had come to excite the Earl, had done so by sea. The Scots simply raided over the border.

‘I’ve already given the orders,’ the Earl growled. ‘Just in case we decide to march.’

He knew that they would, even as he had asked his son for his opinion. The appearance of indecision was a mere distraction: the Earl had made up his mind to do it. Whatever it was. Harry simply lifted a shoulder, as awake to his father’s mode of decision-making as was I.

‘Where is he going? Do we know?’ Harry asked, dropping his clothing again.

‘Into his own country in Yorkshire and then south, to pick up what forces he can from his own lands, I’d say. He’s come with precious few. Sixty, I hear. God’s Blood! Of what value is that? He’ll need all the help he can get.’