Cover

About the Author

Annie Garthwaite grew up in a working-class community in the north-east of England. She studied English at the University of Wales before embarking on a thirty-year international business career. In 2017 she returned to her first love, books, and set out to write the story of a woman she had always felt drawn to: Cecily Neville. This became her debut novel, Cecily.

Dedication

For my mother, who gave me time to read stories. And for Caroline, who gives me time to write them.

Author’s Note

Readers who wish to study in greater detail the family relationships that fuel the dynastic allegiances and political rivalries described in this novel will find genealogies at the back of the book. These include an illustration of Richard Duke of York’s claim to the Crown.

Prologue

1431

Eight years ago, Cecily Neville’s family gave her in marriage to Richard Plantagenet. It was a gamble. But the last of a dozen daughters must take her chances. Or make them.

Now, as Cecily turns sixteen, their life together begins. The son of a long-dead traitor, Richard’s prospects are uncertain, his loyalties suspect. If he can win the young king’s trust, he might regain his family’s titles and make Cecily his Duchess of York. If not, he may be deemed too dangerous to let live.

The threat is inescapable and now they share it, for it is the blood in Richard’s veins that he will pass on to their sons, the old royal blood his father died for. Cecily is undaunted. Together, she believes, they can do anything.

And besides, at some unseen future time, might not such blood as easily make their fortune as mar it?

1

30 May 1431

Rouen, France

It’s no easy thing, to watch a woman burn. A young woman, who has seen only three more summers than yourself and claims the voice of God compels her actions. But there it is; the day’s work. And she must harden herself to it.

So, on a May morning so fine its early sun has already chased Rouen’s street dogs into shadows, Cecily has put on black velvet, sombre and rich. She has bound a rosary at her waist; a reminder to the French that God has answered the prayers of the English and delivered Joan of Arc into their hands. A reminder to her king that her loyalty is to him and to Heaven.

She waits now in the market square, her face to the pyre and sullen French anger at her back, for the signal that will tell her Joan is coming out to die. She raises her head when it comes, a trumpet call, high and vicious, and, beneath it, the crowd’s murmur growing to a roar. Beside her, her husband Richard straightens his back, squares his feet. She swallows bile and does the same. The sun is hot enough, but that’s nothing, she thinks, to the blaze to come. Have courage, her mother would say. Faith and courage can accomplish anything. Cecily wonders if Joan’s mother told her the same. Likely someone did. In her glory days Joan put on armour and rode at the head of armies. With words alone she roused a fearful king and turned the tide of a war. Imagine. Now the tide runs all against her, and she must find only the courage to die. Though Joan is England’s enemy, Cecily wishes courage for her now.

Soon the ring of metalled feet overwhelms the clarion, and the crowd parts for a wagon, its blade-bristling guard, and the prisoner bound upon it. It’s the first time she’s seen Joan and isn’t sure what to expect. Just a pale, thin girl, it seems, head shorn and bloodied. It doesn’t look like there’s much fight left in her. The bright armour of Joan’s soldiering days is long gone and today’s thin shift, with the filth of a prison year upon it, is scant covering for a body that, some say, English soldiers have been allowed their way with. Though Richard says surely not, Cecily can believe it. The King’s uncles have long wanted Joan dead. But they wanted her shamed, first.

Cecily sees Joan stumble as she’s pulled from the wagon and thinks for a moment she will fall and knock herself senseless. And what then? But the guards press in to hold Joan upright, her body crushed between their bulk as they jostle towards the pyre, her arms pinioned behind her, her small breasts jutting.

The desperate parade passes close enough that Cecily can see Joan’s eyes. One is closed by livid bruises, the other, white-rimmed and wide, is fixed on the crucifix borne high above her by a priest, leading the way to death and whatever might lie beyond it. Joan’s lips are moving and Cecily recognizes the words of the Ave, falling stuttering and fast. She wonders what she prays for. Rescue? Or just an end to this?

I would pray for the death of every Englishman here, Cecily thinks. Then suddenly she is afraid, for no one can fathom the power of Joan’s prayers, and Richard stands beside her, who has seen Joan tried and nodded his head at her sentence. Her breath catches and she pants, once, and he’s holding out a hand to steady her. She raises a palm, shakes her head to signal no, then makes a fist to hide her fingers’ trembling. He draws back, and she feels his gaze follow hers to where the guards are handing Joan into the reaching arms of men who wait to receive her. They draw her up, bare legs flailing, then bind her and bring more wood, so that she stands deep among a thicket of staves.

She can no longer hear Joan’s prayers so, out of pity and to guard her own soul, she speaks them with her, as the men clamber down and reach for their torches. At last the fire is set and the flames lick like dogs at Joan’s feet and thighs. Cecily feels their growing heat against her own cheek as Joan’s voice, steady at the last, rings out above her head,

‘All I have done was by God’s order.’ Then, urgent, as the priest’s arms falter and his burden dips, ‘Hold up the cross of Christ that I may see it as I die!’

Cecily narrows her eyes against livid sparks as Joan’s prayers give way to hacking coughs and shrieks, then sudden silence. She sets herself to watch as flesh burns, blossoms and falls away. There’s grit in her eyes, sweat runs the cleft of her shoulder blades and, beneath her clasped hands, her stomach shrivels. But she won’t flinch. She knows this is a test.

It seems an age, but at last the fire is sated, and into the hush it leaves behind, Joan’s body sags and falls with a soft sigh of ash.

Cecily looks down at last, swallows hard and blinks sore eyes.

Richard turns towards her. ‘Come away now,’ he says. ‘It’s done.’ He moves to wrap an arm about her waist.

She stalls him, placing her fingers, still warm from the fire, on the back of his gloved hand. ‘I stood firm.’

There’s ash in his hair, his face is pinched and smutted, but he manages a wry smile. ‘Firmer than your husband, I think.’

That morning she’d confessed to him her dread of it. He’d said she needn’t go. That he himself did not relish the burning of women. She shook her head. No. We go together. It must be seen that we can watch the King’s enemies die, and not falter.

And there, across the still-smoking fire, beyond the greasy stink of Joan’s death, the child king’s uncles, the Dukes of Bedford and Gloucester, stand shoulder to shoulder.

Watching.

She raises her chin, and then, having measured the depth of Bedford’s slow bow, the slide of Gloucester’s eyes, lets Richard raise her hand, turn her about, lead her away. The crowd parts for them and, as if their leaving is a signal, begins to disperse.

Englishmen murmur and pat each other’s shoulders as they go, well done, well done.

Frenchmen, penned in to witness this defeat, slip between guards who part their pikes to let them pass and chide, ‘Go home now, and take a lesson from this.’

Cecily watches them go. What lesson should she herself take? she wonders. Only that, if a woman takes up arms, she must be very sure of winning.

2

16 December 1431

Paris

With Joan dead, England’s king can come to his French crowning. It’s been a long wait. A hundred years of battling and scrapping, winning by inches, then losing again. The fifth Henry, this one’s father, came close after Agincourt, but coughed up his guts on another battlefield before he could drag his bony arse to the throne. He handed the task to his brothers, Bedford and Gloucester. A deathbed promise wrested from them both: hold England, win France. Make my son king of both.

Now the day is come and the incense-drenched air above Notre Dame’s high altar is riven by the Sanctus bell, calling God to come lay hands on his anointed. As the cathedral’s vast spaces fall silent on the dying chime, Cecily dares raise her eyes to where, beyond a sea of bowed heads, her Uncle Beaufort, the towering scarlet cardinal, lowers the long-contested crown of France on to the child Henry’s head.

Henry himself is a shimmer of white, his ten-year-old arms outstretched, his bare breast sheened with chrism, his face tear-swept and rapt. His mouth falls open in a small round ‘oh’ as the weight of a kingdom falls on him. She shivers at it. Dear God in Heaven, is this how kings are made? Henry raises his head in a shaft of sunlight, blinks in its dazzle. Her eyes, following his, are caught in the glare of a second crown, that of England. Henry’s by right since he was six months old, now held aloft in Gloucester’s arms.

The cardinal’s voice rings out. ‘Henry, the sixth of that name, King of England and of France.’

The glad words draw a tidal sigh of amens. When the cardinal turns to acknowledge them, Cecily knows herself seen, the only upturned face, watching holy mysteries as if she has a right to know God’s business. She expects his look to be a chastisement. He is her mother’s brother, after all, and no less sharp. But his eyes crease at the corners and, almost, he smiles, as if to say, there you are Cecily, bold as ever.

Among the slow-moving coronation procession, Cecily passes out through the cathedral’s great west door, beneath the lofty tympanum, where Christ Triumphant, serene and indifferent, presides over the judgement of the dead. Emerging into winter sunlight, she feels the sanctity of the church fall away as the world, sharp with frost and conflict, rises up to meet her. She knows today’s crowning marks no end to war. It’s little more than a gesture, grand and provocative, tip for tap, for now France has two kings. Two years ago the mad king’s son, last of the Valois line all thought finished at Agincourt, gave off licking his wounds and rode on the back of Joan’s holy vision to his crowning in Rheims. He’s down for now, but no one thinks he’s finished.

Gloucester, stalking ahead of them, growls into his brother Bedford’s ear. ‘Today sends a message to Charles the Pretender, Charles the Bastard, Charles the thrice-cursed bane of our lives. England still has stomach for the fight, and the true heir of Agincourt comes to stake his claim.’

The dukes press on to be closer to their king, and Richard’s face, when it turns to hers, is wry.

She takes his arm, leans close. ‘The message might be more convincing if the heir of Agincourt was not a puling child who threw his insides up over the ship’s rail an hour out from Dover. Or if he went to his weapons practice more enthusiastically, or more often, than to prayer.’

He threads her arm through his. ‘We must hope Charles’s spies don’t hear of such things.’ A smile. A wink.

Stepping into the carriage that will take them to the coronation feast, Cecily pauses a moment. Ahead of her the shimmering king, on a horse well chosen for a sovereign, but towering for a half-grown boy, steps out through a banner-waving crowd. All most splendid. Then she turns, looking back to where the business of the day reclaims the cathedral square. Beyond it and the encircling river lie the unfathomed byways of Paris. England’s hold there, she knows, is tenuous and challenged. If she walked those narrow streets today, she’d hear low French voices, surly, resentful, biding their time. She wonders about Charles down there in Rheims. Is his courage burned to ash with Joan’s bones, or does she walk his dreams now, urging him on?

She draws up the weighted velvet of her gown, steps inside the curtained carriage, takes a seat opposite her husband and folds her long white hands.

‘So, it’s done, Cecily. At last.’

‘By God’s will,’ she answers.

Granting him a small smile, she leans back against the cushions and closes her eyes. In her private darkness she calculates the value of all she has learned since coming into France: that the will of God, which has called all things into being, might turn a child into a king, a girl into a warrior, or a body into ash. And that any man – or woman indeed – may, according to their courage, shape His will to their purpose.

That night the company dine listlessly on roast goose. No one’s hungry, though they’ve barely eaten all day. They’d been too nervous to breakfast well that morning and the food at the coronation banquet, though impressive to look upon, had made poor eating. Pungent sauces masked fish dishes that were overcooked and cold when brought to table. Glistening pastries hid meats grey with fat. The French lords had complained among themselves, muttering under their breath about the incompetence of English cooks. ‘All show and no substance,’ Cecily called it, sniffing. ‘It wouldn’t have happened at home.’

In her mother’s household, the language of food spoke through the senses to the heart: see what we have, how we can sustain you. Don’t you want to be one of us? It had spoken to Richard, clearly enough. He’s wanted very much to be one of them ever since, in his twelfth year, eight years an orphan and adrift, he was brought north through foul December weather into the warm brilliance of Raby’s great hall at dinner.

The royal courier, who’d ridden graceless and hunched ahead of him for the two-week journey, pushed him towards Cecily’s father, full of charm. ‘Your new ward, my lord. I bring him and the season’s greetings from the Lord Protector, the great Duke of Gloucester.’

Richard raised his eyes, ready to be resentful. Then his vision was filled with the sight of Ralph, Earl of Westmorland, rising from the table and striding towards him, tall and smiling, with his arms thrown wide. ‘Ah, you’re in out of the cold now, Richard. Get that wet cloak off and come eat. Formalities later.’

It was the first time he saw Cecily. From the space hastily cleared for him, and with the blade of his hunger blunted, he raised his eyes from the warm cup that soothed his chilblained fingers. The earl was talking, bright and fast, down the table, to men who seemed hungrier for his attention than for the food before them. Nearer, a girl, no more than nine, stared fixedly at him from beside the chair of a lady rich in silk who, with her hand lying soft on the earl’s sleeve, stared likewise, as if measuring him for clothes. The girl blinked her grey eyes, reached up to whisper into the lady’s ear, then returned to her staring.

The lady smiled softly down on the girl’s head then turned another smile, less loving, more knowing, on him. ‘You’re welcome, Richard. My daughter Cecily says so.’

Richard came, in time, to idolize Cecily’s father. Ralph Neville replaced the uncertainties of a childhood shadowed by treason with the reliable virtues of a well-governed household. Among the young men drawn together under Ralph’s affinity, he found a place within a finely ordered discipline, where loyalty and good endeavour brought rewards he understood. The rules were simple. He could keep them.

He learned soon enough that he’d been brought into Ralph’s household by a business transaction, but as time fostered his understanding of it, he found himself content with its terms. By the mercy of King Henry V, who brought the axe down on his father’s traitorous neck, he retained rights of inheritance to the Earldom of Cambridge and the Dukedom of York. But only a royal affirmation at Richard’s coming of age will turn those rights to reality, and that merciful king is long dead. His brothers, today’s king’s uncles, would have preferred the orphan tipped into a ditch with his father’s headless corpse. Instead, he’s spent his childhood between pillar and post, passed like baggage among men who despise him, unwanted, knocked about, scorned. Until Ralph said to Gloucester, let me have the boy. I’ll make a king’s man of him and give him to my girl.

Richard was married to Cecily within months of his arrival at Raby. He stood beside the grey-eyed girl in the castle’s gilded chapel while the priest muttered and his bride, stiff in her finery, listened earnestly and repeated the words put to her.

‘That’s done then, Richard,’ said Ralph, leaning down to look him in the eye and laying a steadying hand on his shoulder. ‘Serve well, please the King, and you’ll get a dukedom for my daughter.’

He watched over Ralph’s shoulder as his young bride was led away by her nurses. When she turned and smiled at him from the doorway, he felt his heart settle.

Richard has spent the last three years serving his king. Called to court and the King’s company to have his loyalties tested. First in England, now in France.

‘Traitor’s get,’ Gloucester had called him, that first day. ‘Prove me wrong.’

Richard has made it his work to do so.

The dukes of Gloucester and Bedford sit opposite Cecily now, picking at the cooling carcass of the bird and passing a wine jug between them as they talk. Their wives have their heads together at the far end of the table. Cecily doesn’t know if they’re planning a skirmish or comparing the skills of their dressmakers, and doesn’t much care. Like Richard, she’s watching the dukes, wondering what their next move will be and what it might mean for them.

She’s been Richard’s wife for eight years now, but in truth their life together began when they boarded ship for Calais. These eighteen months in France they’ve been every day together, and the family that shaped them has shaped them to fit. They’re natural allies. Watchers and listeners both. Thinkers, planners, weighers of words. They’ve seen their chance for a place in the world, and joined hands to grasp it.

From London to Calais, Rouen to Paris, Cecily has observed her husband’s careful diplomacy, his ready ear for the boy king’s prattling, his studied deference to Gloucester’s barking plaints, his quiet conversations with Bedford, his readiness to be helpful, his aptitude for work. She’s watched him wrack his conscience over Joan’s trial and execution, troubled by its savagery but knowing it to be the price of royal approval.

‘I don’t like it,’ he’d told her, that morning of the burning. ‘I’d rather find the men who put her up to it.’

She’d shrugged. ‘She’s the woman in front of those men, Richard. If French hopes live in a virgin maid, then a virgin maid must die.’ A finger on his chest, chiding. ‘King’s man.’

She’s smoothed his way, in so far as she could. She’s courted the wives of both dukes, who now call her friend. She speaks with Gloucester of books and music; subjects he’d expect a woman to speak to him of. With Bedford she reminisces about her father and his; the loyal earl, his beloved king, now reunited in Heaven. He has softened at such times. He is a man who can be moved.

In Rouen, in the days after Joan’s burning, Bedford’s wife had come to her, threaded their arms as they walked the castle walls. ‘I think they should be friends,’ she said, ‘your husband and mine.’ That night they dined together, all four and no other. They talked of the young king’s father, the greatness of his legacy, the preservation of his son.

‘I will make it my life’s work,’ Richard told them, his voice earnest, his eyes steady and clear. He means he will forswear his own blood, flowing to him through his Mortimer ancestors from Edward III’s second son; richer than young Henry’s, descended from his third. Bedford had nodded and, when they parted, pressed a hand to Richard’s shoulder, while Duchess Anne kissed Cecily’s cheek, and smiled against it.

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