Page 89 of The Raven and the Rose
When Roger joined Edward and Richard in Nottingham, he was relieved that Percy’s men from Northumberland had arrived. They all realized that by reaching Nottingham without being challenged, both Lord Stanley and the Earl of Shrewsbury had held their hands and had done nothing to stop them. Edward’s mood was high, and he grinned and repeated one of his favorite axioms: “He who is not against me, is with me!”
Warwick’s brother John had an army at Pontefract fifty miles north, yet he hadn’t challenged Edward yet. So Edward cautiously moved his army southward from Nottingham to Leicester, which was only twenty miles from Warwick’s army at Coventry. Edward’s spies told him that Warwick’s brother was not at Pontefract but had joined Warwick at Coventry. Exeter and Oxford were also with Warwick.
Then an amazing thing happened. Edward received a message from his brother George, Duke of Clarence. He offered to join Edward instead of taking his four thousand men to aid Warwick. Richard mistrusted his brother and reminded Edward of their brother’s past treachery. Ravenspur was also against it. He desperately wanted Clarence on the enemy’s side so he could kill him with impunity. Edward, however, saw the wisdom of accepting George’s offer; it immediately doubled the size of his army.
After accepting George’s offer, Edward moved his new combined army of eight thousand men outside Coventry, ready for the fight. Suddenly George suggested that Edward send a conciliatory message to Warwick to settle everything peacefully. Ravenspur wanted to run his sword between his eyes, but he could not, for Edward needed him. Roger felt a great relief when Edward refused to parley. “If Warwick comes out of Coventry and surrenders, I will give him his life.”
When it became clear that Warwick would not surrender yet would not come out of Coventry to fight, Edward headed to London to seize mad King Henry. The mayor threw open the gates, and suddenly everyone in London was Edward’s friend. He marched straight to the bishop’s palace and put Warwick’s brother, the Archbishop of York, in the Tower. Mad King Henry followed him there. Edward’s next stop was Westminster Sanctuary, where he brought out his Queen and the princesses and prince she had borne him. Now that he had secured London, he was ready to march upon Warwick and settle things once and for all. Warwick had now marched his army to St. Albans, only twenty miles away. This time one of them would be finished forever!
Edward selected three thousand men as a vanguard to lead the attack. He placed Richard in charge of them; Ravenspur was his second-in-command. It was a colossal responsibility but a coveted honor. It went without saying that Edward would ride in the front row of the vanguard.
Roger bade his men make camp; in the darkness they could hear the noises of the enemy encamped nearby. His mood swung from desolation to elation as he sat beside his campfire. He realized the irony of the situation: Edward, Richard, and himself had all been trained by Warwick, and he remembered his lessons to the letter.
He got up and moved among the men, urging them not to get drunk the night before the battle. He cursed the noisy, restless stallions and thought,By God, Roseanna is right Geldings would be better-behaved mounts for the knights.Suddenly his senses were filled with Roseanna. He longed for her so much that he vowed no power on earth would keep him from her.
The night turned damp and cold, and though he was freezing, he sweated inside his armor. He moved among the men and warned them against having doubts. They must be convinced that they would win the day; to think otherwise was to invite death. He advised them to conserve their strength and energy when the battle was joined. It would be a long day, in which endurance and persistence would count for more than wild acts of bravado. “Stand solid, and parry everything that comes at you,” he repeated over and over. He thanked God for the experienced faces he picked out of the crowd, for a lot of these young men would go into battle for the first time. The horror they would experience would be beyond belief.
He avoided telling them about the red mud of battlefields—mud made from the blood of men fallen and crushed underfoot. He did not tell them of the numbing exhaustion that came after a battle yet banished sleep for days because of its horrors.
When dawn arrived, a thick fog blanketed the whole area so he could not see his hand before his face. It changed nothing! They would still attack first, going by sound and feel rather than sight.
Roger came up against his first enemy with such force, their breastplates crashed, and it knocked the wind from him. His sword dripped blood; he kept his sword arm high, and soon his leather gauntlets were soggy with sweat and blood. His arm ached, his lungs were afire, and his eyes stung from his own salty sweat. His brain dimly told him that if his feet encountered something hard, it was armor; if something soft, it was flesh.
His strength was ebbing. Then miraculously a trumpet rally told him the enemy had faltered. He was filled with a second wind and renewed vigor. Gradually, inch by inch, yard by yard, he gained ground until the enemy was on the run, and then he saw the enemy’s retreat with his own eyes as the fog lifted. He saw Edward’s yellow hair when he removed his helmet and ran over to him. He stood above Warwick’s body, and he was weeping. Roger stripped off his own helmet. His face was wet from blood and sweat and tears. It was over! Praise God, it was over once and for all!
The King looked at him and said, “You are wounded, Roger. Get you to a surgeon.” Until that moment he had been unaware that his left arm hung useless and bloody, but now he began to feel the burning agony of a deep sword thrust through his shoulder. Common sense told him to obey Edward, for he knew from experience that a wound tended immediately healed quicker; yet a stronger force within him compelled him to go to Roseanna.
He mounted his horse and headed away from the army. He was driven by a madness to reach home. Ravenspur lay eighty miles to the north. The pain came and went, washing over him in waves. Sometimes he was barely conscious, yet relentlessly he pressed on. He was within sight of home before he allowed himself to fall unconscious from his horse.
Roseanna was at Ravenspur. She had been scanning the horizon hourly for signs of her husband. She saw the black stallion and saw Roger pitch from the saddle, and she was out of the hall, running immediately, crying for the stablemen to aid her.
Roger was filthy and stank to high heaven. He was covered with dried sweat and caked blood. His black hair was encrusted with filth and was plastered to his head. They carried him in unconscious, and with the help of Kate Kendall and James Burke she stripped and bathed him. He gained consciousness fast enough when she began to tend his wounded shoulder but he lay without flinching as she trimmed the gangrene with her sharp knife. She signed to Kate to pass her the goblet of wine; she held it to his lips and dared him to protest against the sleeping draught.
He took only one mouthful, then his hand came up to push it away. His fingers brushed her hand and suddenly she couldn’t bear to share him with anyone else. She lifted her eyes to the others in the room and said, “Thank you for your help; I would like to be alone with my husband now.”
Reluctantly they left their newly returned lord and Roseanna began to sponge his good shoulder and wide chest.
“You called me your husband.”
“Yes, of course, that’s who you are,” she said, as if she were stating the most obvious truth to a simpleton.
“But what about Lincoln?” he asked, gritting the words through his teeth.
“Oh, my God!” She stopped sponging his chest. “I didn’t even think of him! Is he all right?”
“I can’t be certain, but I thought I saw him retreating from the battle with Warwick’s men.” He watched her face closely. When he saw relief there and nothing more, his heart began to lighten.
“I do hope he’s safe. He’s such a good man. Roger,” she said slowly as she met his gaze, “you must understand I needed protection desperately. That’s why I married him. I don’t want to hurt him, because he’s shown me only kindness, but I am not his wife. I’myours.You are my heart’s deepest desire.” She bent down and kissed him with all the emotion she was feeling.
Roger groaned with happiness and put his good arm around Roseanna’s waist.Roseanna still loved him. She had chosen him.
Ravenspur’s dark eyes burned into hers.
“By God woman, your kiss makes me want to jump from this water and ravish you,” Roger said.
She laughed softly. “One thing is sure, my husband, I am safe from you this night.”
“Safe from me?” he demanded. “By God, you’ll never be safe from me. Get me from this damned water and bind the wound so I can take you to bed and drive Lincoln out of your system!”
