Page 8 of The Forsaken (Echoes from the Past #4)

Guy closed his eyes as silent tears slid down his temples and into his hair.

William was dead. His oldest brother, who had been more like a father to him since the deaths of their parents, was gone, and now Eleanor was widowed.

She’d suffered a stillbirth only two months since, and now she’d lost the husband she adored, and their son, Adam, had lost his father.

The boy was only four, and likely wouldn’t remember William once he reached adulthood.

Guy barely remembered his own mother, who had died in childbirth when he was nearly six.

The child never drew breath and had been buried with their mother on a beautiful spring day, a day so lovely and bursting with the promise of summer that Guy had only wanted to run and play and not stand with his head bowed as his mother was laid to rest. Their father had died a few years later of a fever that had burned hot and bright and took him in less than a week, leaving the de Rosel children orphaned, but not alone.

As had been previously agreed upon, John Ambrose, the Earl of Stanwyck, a great nobleman who’d had an affection for their father from the days of their youth, had become their patron.

William, the new Baron de Rosel, and Hugh had already been in his service, William as a squire and Hugh as a page.

Guy was taken on as a page and then elevated to squire after the required seven years of training.

The brothers had squired for the earl until their knighting at the age of twenty-two.

Having been raised and fostered by the supporters of the House of Lancaster, the de Rosels had always pledged their allegiance to King Henry VI and his lady, Margaret of Anjou, and their French heritage had contributed to their loyalty to the French queen.

There had never been any question about which side they’d fight on when the conflict between the houses of Lancaster and York escalated into open warfare with the ultimate prize being the throne of England.

And now the Duke of Northumberland was dead, as were Sir Andrew Trollope and Lord Clifford, who had died before the battle of Towton during the retreat from Ferrybridge.

The Lancastrian army was in disarray, as was their cause .

Guy tried to remain alert, but physical pain and emotional turmoil left him disoriented and confused.

He fell into a restless sleep, plagued by nightmares of a never-ending battle in which he fell again and again, only to rise, bloodied and battered, to fight on, driven toward the river by his Yorkist foes.

At the riverbank, the ground became slippery and uneven.

He cried out in frustration as he lost his balance and tumbled backward into the icy river, the rushing water stealing his breath and pulling him down.

He sank like a stone, his lungs burning, until his armor-clad body settled on the slimy bottom.

By the time Guy woke from his nightmare, Hugh had returned and sat on the ground next to Walter, exhaling loudly as he leaned against the tree trunk.

“Were you able to find a wagon, sir?” Walter asked.

Hugh nodded. “It’s more of a rickety cart than a wagon, but it’ll have to do. Walter, find us something to eat. I’m famished,” Hugh said as he rubbed his eyes.

“Yes, sir,” Walter replied. He looked like he was about to cry, but after a stern look from Hugh, he set off, weaving between fallen knights and dead horses.

Several fires burned on the outskirts of the field where Lancastrian survivors warmed themselves as they tried to regroup and account for their dead.

The Duke of York’s army had moved on after the battle.

Walter heard it said that Edward had taken his victory to the city of York, where the staunchly Lancastrian population waited in terror for a reprisal from the enemy.

In the coming days, graves would be dug for the Yorkists who had fallen at the Battle of Towton, but today was the day Edward Plantagenet would celebrate his victory and solidify his claim to the throne.

His cousin, Richard Neville, the Earl of Warrick, had proclaimed Edward king less than a month ago, but yesterday’s battle had served to solidify his position.

The balance of power had shifted, and every man who had survived the battle, Yorkist and Lancastrian alike, surely knew it .

Guy drifted off again but woke with a start, unable to bear the recurring nightmare any longer.

He was terribly cold and hungry, but he didn’t complain.

He was sure every man on that field felt much the same.

He turned to Hugh. His brother appeared unhurt, but his face was gray with fatigue and his breastplate was smeared with blood.

His dark hair was matted, and three-day stubble shadowed his jaw.

Hugh’s eyes flew open as though he felt Guy’s gaze on him.

“Stay with me,” Hugh commanded. “Do you hear me, Guy?”

Guy nodded. “I’d find it easier to stick around if I had something to eat.”

“Walter will have a devil of a time finding even scraps of bread. There are hundreds of men here, and they are all hungry. I doubt the villagers have much left to spare. The sooner we leave, the better.”

“Are we going home?” Guy asked. He found it hard to form the words due to the roar in his head, but had no desire to go back to sleep and face the demons with bloodied swords and empty eye sockets that sprang back to life to fight on and on.

“Aye, we are,” Hugh replied. “We must bury William, and you’re in no condition to do any fighting in the foreseeable future.”

“Walter said Edward has gone to York.”

“And a pretty welcome he’s going to receive,” Hugh replied with grim humor.

“Last I heard, Edward’s father and brother’s heads, as well as that of his uncle, the Earl of Salisbury, still adorn Micklegate Bar.

A gruesome sight for any man, let alone one whose family’s remains grace the gatehouse.

There’ll be hell to pay, I wager, especially if Warwick has any say in the matter. ”

Guy thought on Hugh’s words. The death of Richard Plantagenet, the Duke of York, in battle and the subsequent murder of his son, Edmund, the Earl of Rutland, at the hands of Sir Clifford had changed the course of the war once and for all.

Even loyal Lancastrians referred to Sir Clifford as ‘The Butcher’ after he killed the unarmed seventeen-year-old on Wakefield Bridge in cold blood, despite pleas by his own soldiers to let the boy live and take him prisoner instead.

Sir Clifford had wanted to avenge the death of his own father at the battle of St. Albans, but his vengeance wasn’t honorable, not by any standards of combat.

Had he killed Rutland in battle, it would have looked very different for him.

Richard Plantagenet’s death had left his eldest, Edward, first in line for the throne.

Despite rumblings that Edward was nothing more than Warwick’s puppet, his popularity had proved to be all his own, and he had succeeded where his father had failed in attempting to take the throne.

The Earl of Warwick might have been the one to proclaim Edward king, but it was Edward’s skill in battle, his youth, his bravery, and his charm that had paved his path to the throne, reminding the people of all that was missing in their current monarch, Henry VI, a man suited to ruling England about as much as a nun was suited to running whores.

Guy had seen King Henry from a distance several times, riding a docile mare as he wasn’t a competent rider, an empty scabbard at his side.

The man dressed in simple peasant clothes with his hair shorn close to the scalp.

But it wasn’t the manner of his dress that distressed his followers; it was the vacant look in his eyes, and the silly half smile that played about his lips, as if he weren’t quite sure where he was or what he was doing there.

His wife, Margaret of Anjou, was the power behind the throne, but without the active support of her husband, she was fighting a losing battle, and a costly one.

“It isn’t over. Not by a long shot,” Hugh said, shaking his head.

“Somerset will regroup, and Margaret of Anjou will launch a new offensive. She’ll never give up, not as long as there’s still breath in her body.

She’ll see her boy Prince Edward of Westminster on the throne if that’s the last thing she does, despite the Act of Accord. ”

“It likely will be the last thing she does,” Guy replied quietly.

Prince Edward was quiet, pious, and utterly oblivious to the conflict he’d created through his lack of strong leadership.

Some said he suffered from bouts of madness, but Guy had never come close enough to His Royal Highness to see for himself.

There were some who believed that Henry VI’s son with Margaret of Anjou had been fathered by the Duke of Somerset’s father, since the notion of their pious, simple-minded king bedding his fiery queen and begetting a son was incongruous and highly improbable.

Few dared to say the words out loud, or lived long enough after making the insinuation to tell the tale.

Margaret adored her son, and had fought like a lioness to safeguard the throne for him—a quest that had been declared virtually impossible with the Act of Accord of 1460, which allowed Henry to remain on the throne for the duration of his lifetime but disinherited his son, stating that the Duke of York would be next in line for the throne after Henry’s death.

Not a man in the kingdom believed that Margaret of Anjou would accept such a ruling.

It had been a thinly veiled declaration of war.

And now Edward of York was king, and Margaret of Anjou was on the losing side of history, as were the de Rosel brothers.