Dear Reader

I have news, and for once it is not from the fifteenth century.

From this month, I have rearranged my life so that more of my week belongs to the writing desk. Fewer of the hours that belong to everything else, more of the ones with the candle lit, the research books stacked too high, and the dog asleep against my feet. It took me a long while to make this choice, and in the end the second Blood of the Bear book made it for me. It is so close to finished that I can hear it asking for the time.

What this means for you is simple: more story, sooner. I am deep in the final chapters now, and you will be the first to know the moment it is done.

And because good news reads better with a story attached, I went digging through my drawer. There is a short story in there that I wrote some time ago and never sent to anyone. Today part 1 is yours (next week part 2)

Before Alice, there was Joan. This is the story I wrote before history handed me someone real, and no one has ever read it.

THE SNOW AT MIDDLEHAM

A Short Story

Winter 1461 – A Warwick Story

The snow had not stopped in three days.

From the high window of his solar, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, watched the flakes drift down over Middleham’s inner ward, softening the edges of stone and steel. The world below seemed slower for it: men-at-arms moved with more care across the whitened cobbles, their boots slipping now and then; grooms hurried with heads bowed and cloaks drawn tight, leading steaming horses toward the stables. The banners on the walls hung heavy and still, their colours muted by frost.

Snow hid the scars in the earth where wheels had rutted the mud and where blood had soaked in after some foolish brawl among the men. It laid a pale shroud over Middleham’s imperfections and, for a moment, made it look untroubled.

But Warwick knew better.

Victory at Towton had come cheap for no one, least of all the men who lay beneath that frozen field, and the boy who now called himself King Edward had paid for it in ways he did not yet understand. The country had torn itself in half and still bled at the seams.

And not for him.

He turned from the window as a log shifted in the hearth, sending up a spray of sparks. The warmth barely pushed back the cold that seeped into the stone walls. On the table near the fire lay a scatter of letters and reports, parchment curled at the edges and seals broken, the ink in varying shades of haste and care. Warwick had spent the morning sorting them into two piles: matters that could wait, and matters that might end with someone’s head on a spike.

The smaller pile by far was the first.

There came a rap at the door, two quick knocks and a slower third. His steward’s pattern.

“Enter.”

The door opened to admit Master Denby, a spare, exact man whose gaze missed little and whose steps never hurried. He bowed.

“My lord.”

“You look like a man with trouble,” Warwick said, returning to the table. “Come, then. Put it down. Let us see which sort it is.”

Denby gave a thin smile and laid a leather folder among the other documents. “Winter trouble, my lord. Accounts and arrears. The kind that grows in the dark when men think your attention is elsewhere.”

Warwick broke the thong and opened the folder. Inside lay a tally of rents and fines from his northern manors, the ink cramped and closely written. Beside each name was a note: paid, delayed, in default, in dispute.

“Any of them serious?” he asked, skimming the first column.

“Not yet, my lord.” Denby clasped his hands behind his back. “Most of the delays are from tenants whose land was ravaged in the last campaign or whose men fell at Towton. They are late because they are poor, not defiant. The coin will come… slowly.”

“And the others?”

“A few lesser lords are attempting to argue down what they owe, as though the snow has frozen their memories of past agreements. I have sent reminders.”

Warwick grunted. “They will learn that winter does not dull my arithmetic.”

He turned another page and stopped at a name underlined in Denby’s neat hand.

Baron William Redmayne.

Beside it: payments withheld – see note.

Warwick lifted his eyes. “Redmayne. Why is his line marked out?”

Denby stepped closer, tapping the margin with one finger. “His payments are not simply late, my lord. They have been intentionally withheld. He refused to send the coin by the usual road, claiming it is too dangerous to do so. He fears it will never reach us.”

“Many men fear much since Towton,” Warwick said. “Most of them are cowards. What makes Redmayne different?”

“He is not hiding, my lord,” Denby said. “He came in person to explain. He did not send a man-at-arms with excuses or a priest with weeping. He rode here himself, despite the weather, to lay the matter before your bailiff at Middleham town. With his daughter.”

“His daughter?” Warwick’s brow lifted.

“Yes, my lord.”

Denby cleared his throat, as if uncertain whether to go on. That alone caught Warwick’s interest. His steward was not a man often at a loss.

“Well?” Warwick prompted. “Did she sing a lament so pitiful it melted the bailiff’s heart and ours along with it?”

“No, my lord.” Denby’s lips twitched. “She asked to see the accounts.”

Warwick closed the folder. The small movement echoed in the quiet room.

“She asked… what?”

“To see the accounts,” Denby repeated. “Redmayne is not a dullard, but he was overmatched by the numbers. The war has thrown his revenues into confusion. His tenants are displaced, some crops lost, a few mills damaged. Your bailiff was, shall we say, not inclined to be indulgent. The baron’s lady is dead these three years, and his son is still a boy. The girl, Lady Joan, stepped forward when she realised her father was being manoeuvred into admitting to a greater debt than he truly owed.”

Lady Joan.

Warwick repeated the name to himself and let it settle.

“She spoke out in front of my officer?” he asked. “Bold for a girl.”

“Not bold, my lord,” Denby said. “I would call it measured. She did not contradict the bailiff directly. She merely… asked to see the sums herself and then pointed out where they did not tally with previous years.”

“Could any girl have done the same?” Warwick asked. “Or was she merely parroting her father’s opinion?”

“That is the thing, my lord.” Denby leaned his knuckles on the table. “Redmayne admitted that he had not noticed the discrepancy. The girl had. She had been keeping notes of the manors’ incomes herself. When she saw the figures did not match, she spoke.”

Now that was interesting.

Most noble daughters kept accounts of fabrics and spices, of household linen and small personal expenses. Few maintained their own ledgers of rents and dues. Fewer still would challenge a bailiff over them, however politely.

“She watched you count before she tried to take the coins,” Warwick said. “Go on.”

“Once she had pointed out the error, she did not press,” Denby continued. “She thanked the bailiff for his patience, apologised for the confusion, and suggested her father be allowed a little time to order his affairs after the recent troubles. She spoke well. Calmly.”

“Calmly,” Warwick repeated. “Not in tears?”

“No, my lord. Redmayne was more flustered than she. He tried to hush her at first, but when he realised she was helping him instead of embarrassing him, he let her speak.”

Warwick ran his thumb along the edge of the folder.

Redmayne was a decent enough man, loyal to York and not overburdened with wit. His lands lay in a pocket of countryside where Lancastrian sympathies had once run strong. Warwick had expected trouble from that direction, but not, perhaps, from the Redmaynes themselves.

“And what of the road?” he asked. “Why does he suddenly fear to use it?”

Denby’s gaze flicked to the coals in the hearth before returning to Warwick’s face. “Because two of his men have vanished on it.”

Warwick looked up. “Vanished?”

“Both carrying coin, my lord,” Denby said. “One with rents for your coffers, the other with money owed to a Lombard merchant in York. Neither reached their destination. Redmayne sent men to search. They found a broken cart and blood in a ditch, but no bodies. The local folk swear they know nothing.”

“And do you believe them?”

“No, my lord.” Denby did not hesitate over it.

Snow whispered against the window. Down in the yard, a shout rang out as a man slipped and landed on his back. Another laughed. The sound was distant, muffled by the thick glass and the storm.

“Who controls that stretch of road?” Warwick asked.

“Sir Geoffrey Hawes,” Denby said. “His manor lies three miles from where the cart was found.”

Hawes.

Warwick knew him: a minor man with a major talent for survival, the kind who swore to any banner that happened to be passing. He had bent the knee to York after Towton, mouthing loyalty with practised ease.

Warwick did not trust him.

“He claims to know nothing of the missing men?” Warwick asked.

“He does, my lord,” Denby said. “He blames outlaws, or perhaps deserters from the Lancastrian forces. Says the country is thick with such men, desperate and hungry.”

“And yet none of them trouble his own riders,” Warwick said.

Denby’s silence answered well enough.

Warwick looked down at the list again, at the underlined name.

Baron William was not wealthy enough to be dangerous nor foolish enough to be useless, a middling man in a troubled corner of the north, valuable chiefly because he held land Warwick did not wish to manage himself.

And his daughter, it seemed, had sharper eyes than he.

“Tell me more of the girl,” Warwick said.

Denby seemed almost relieved to leave talk of Hawes behind. “She is perhaps eighteen. No great beauty, but pleasant enough to look at, with dark hair and serious eyes. She watched everyone in the room as if she were afraid to be noticed and yet determined to see everything. When her father stumbled over a figure, she supplied it. When the bailiff grew short-tempered, she softened him with a smile. Not flirting,” he added. “Just… human. She has the knack of making people feel that she understands their position, even if she does not agree with them.”

“She soothed the bailiff?” Warwick said, amused. “Not an easy task.”

“He was praising her afterward, my lord,” Denby said. “Said she was ‘a sensible girl,’ which is as high a compliment as he ever pays a woman.”

“Sensible.” Warwick considered the word. “And did she lie?”

That question drew a slight frown from Denby, as it had the first time.

“Not as far as I could tell, my lord,” he said. “She did not pretend her father could pay more than he can, and she did not deny the arrears. She simply arranged the truth to her advantage.”

“Arranged the truth,” Warwick repeated.

Most people lied like children throwing mud: wildly and without aim, covering themselves in filth in the process. The rare ones lied like craftsmen, shaping their falsehoods to fit the gaps in other men’s knowledge. Rarest of all were those who understood that the most dangerous lie was the one built on truth.

“And Redmayne himself?” Warwick asked. “What do you make of him?”

Denby shrugged one shoulder. “A solid man, and a fearful one. Loyal to the House of York because he fears the alternative more. He fought for your side at Towton and bled for it. I do not think he plays games with Hawes. He is not… subtle enough.”

“But his daughter is,” Warwick said.

Denby took his time answering. “She is sharper than he, my lord. But she is still a girl, and a frightened one. Her composure in the hall did not reach her hands. They were shaking.”

“Fear and competence are not enemies,” Warwick said. “If anything, they often walk together. The brave man who feels no fear is a fool. The brave man who acts despite his fear is useful.”

He pushed the folder aside.

Withheld payments and a lord who claimed ignorance, and between them two missing men and a girl who saw more than anyone expected her to. Pieces on a board, and not yet enough of them to show the shape of the game.

England wore York’s colours now, and men shouted the young king’s name in taverns as readily as they had once shouted Henry’s. Underneath, the old loyalties still stirred. Margaret of Anjou sat in Scotland and waited, and gold moved in secret to men who had not yet decided which way to face.

And somewhere on a northern road, someone was taking coin that did not belong to them and making sure that those who carried it did not live to tell the tale.

Warwick could not ride out to look into every ditch himself. That was why he had stewards and bailiffs, and other men whose names appeared in no account book: a net of eyes and ears across the country.

But nets had holes.

His gaze went back to Denby.

“You trust the report from the bailiff?” he asked. “About Hawes? About the missing men?”

“As much as I trust any man whose livelihood depends on not offending his lord,” Denby said. “He is thorough, but he is not… imaginative. If there is deceit here, it did not come from him.”

“And you believe Lady Joan saw something of it,” Warwick said.

“I believe she saw that the sums did not match,” Denby replied. “Whether she understands what that might mean…” He shook his head. “She is clever, my lord, not yet wise.”

Wisdom could be taught; cleverness could not.

Warwick walked back to the window. The snow had thickened, blurring the outlines of men in the yard. Two boys were hurling snow at one another behind a stack of barrels, using them for cover. One would pop his head up and fling a handful before ducking back down; the other would do the same from his side, both of them laughing.

On the wall above them, a sentry stamped his feet and blew on his hands, the plume on his helm tipped with white.

Someone would have to check on the stores of grain before the week was out. The snow would throw off supply lines. Villages would find it harder to reach market. Men grew restless when they were cold and hungry. Restless men with swords and grudges could be turned into rebels for surprisingly little coin.

Warwick set his hands on the stone sill.

Power lay in crowns and banners, to a point. It lay just as surely in ledgers and roads, in who owed what to whom and which coins never arrived, and in who could see three steps ahead.

He needed more people who could see.

Most nobles thought themselves clever and were not. They mistook arrogance for insight, gossip for information. They believed themselves safe because they had always been so.

Far more interesting were the ones who knew they were not safe and watched the world accordingly.

He turned back to Denby.

“If Baron Redmayne returns to Middleham on business,” Warwick said, “you will send him to me at once, and not by way of the bailiff. To me.”

Denby bowed. “Yes, my lord.”

“And if the girl is with him,” Warwick added, “you will contrive to have her brought as well. Say I wish to commend her for her… sensible handling of the accounts. That ought to soothe her father’s pride.”

“You… you wish to speak with her personally, my lord?”

“Is there some reason I should not?” Warwick asked, mild.

“No, my lord.” Denby dipped his head. “Only… it is not often a great lord calls a baron’s daughter into his solar to discuss sums.”

“Then we shall surprise her,” Warwick said. “I have always found it instructive to see how people behave when the world gives them something they did not expect.”

He saw the question in Denby’s eyes and chose not to answer it.

Let him wonder.

Let them all wonder.

As Denby moved to gather the other folders, Warwick touched the ledger once more, his fingers resting for a moment on Redmayne’s name.

A minor baron with a missing cart and blood in a ditch, a neighbour playing both sides, and a frightened girl with a steady voice and a clear head. None of it would seem important to most men.

But most men were not charged with holding the north for a king who had yet to learn its roads.

“See that the next messenger from our northern agents is brought to me without delay,” Warwick said. “If Hawes is playing at loyalty while stealing from me, I will have his game uncovered before the thaw.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Denby left, closing the door behind him without a sound.

Warwick stood alone in the quiet room, listening to the wind hum around the eaves. Somewhere in the keep below, a door slammed and a dog barked and was hushed.

He looked back at the ledger, at the underlined name, at the neat note in Denby’s neat hand.

Baron William Redmayne.
​Payments withheld. Road unsafe.

And beneath, cramped in the margin:

Daughter present. Lady Joan. Perceptive.

Joan Redmayne, a baron’s daughter with a mind for numbers and nerves that did not shatter under a bailiff’s stare. She had seen that the sums were wrong and had spoken, even if she did not yet know how deep the wrong ran.

She did not know it, sitting in some cold northern hall with her ink-stained fingers and her patient sums.

But the snow had shifted beneath her feet.

Warwick turned back to the window one last time. The sky was a flat grey lid. The land beyond the walls was blank and treacherous, hiding ditches and snares alike.

“Small minds and big mouths,” he said to himself. “England is full of them.”

He let his gaze drift toward the north and Hawes’s lands, and the invisible road where coin and men had vanished.

“Every now and then, though,” he said, “one finds a sharp eye in an unexpected place.”

The smile that followed would not have comforted Hawes.

“And sharp eyes,” he said, “are never wasted. Not in my service.”

He returned to the table, picked up another report, and began to read.

Outside, the snow fell on Middleham and on Hawes’s road alike, and on villages still counting their dead.

And somewhere far from the castle, in a hall that smelled of smoke and wet wool, Joan Redmayne bent over a ledger, adding a column of figures with steady hands, unaware that the most powerful man in England had just written her name on a very different kind of list.

END OF PART ONE

Until next week, with ink-stained fingers,

Augusta

​
​