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He grinned. It seemed Noah’s friends were as good-humored as he was. “Think about it.”
“Are those petals?” she asked. He nodded, and illumination burst upon her. “Ah, it’s the white rose of York.”
“Yes, it is. This coin is known as a rose ryal.”
“How much would it cost me to buy today, if one were for sale?”
“Thousands of pounds. More significantly to your research, this ryal was minted in London in 1470. However all these items came to be together, it’s a fair bet it happened during the reign of Edward the Fourth.”
Warwick’s banner floating in the wind … the drumming of hooves on packed earth, the creak and murmur of leather saddles, the iron jangle of armed riders …
Where had that image come from? Juliet remembered the moment on the stairs up to the medieval solar, that sense of having been seized by something outside herself, hearing sounds she shouldn’t have been able to recognize—
“Juliet?”
Daniel was looking at her expectantly, holding the last item.
“Sorry,” she said. “What did you say?”
“I said this adds weight to the Edward the Fourth theory. Do you know what a livery badge is?”
“To identify servants, right?”
“Clerks, messengers, men-at-arms—their lord’s livery badge was sewn to their clothing and provided recognition and a certain standing. Anyone who bore a livery badge was under the special care and protection of their lord.”
“So you think whoever created this little cache was under the protection of a specific lord?”
“I do.”
“Are you going to tell me which one?”
“Let me say this—don’t confuse a coat of arms with a badge. Coats of arms were heraldic devices meant to proclaim an often complicated family history. They could be quartered and quartered again until they could hardly be deciphered. And there arises the question of multiple brothers—how do you easily distinguish between the male members of the same family? That is where the personal badge comes in. Most every man of status—and a good many women, like Anne Boleyn—chose their own symbol and motto as a straightforward form of identification. Easily seen on the banners of a battlefield, easily carved into stone, easily turned into textiles.”
Juliet, distracted by the mention of the famous queen, said, “I think I remember something about Anne Boleyn. Was hers a falcon?”
“Very good. Ironically, she paired it with the motto The Most Happy.”
“All right, so I’m looking at a personal badge.” Juliet took it from Daniel and narrowed her eyes. The colors had dulled over the centuries it had been buried, but she could still separate white from gold. “The white rose of York.” She didn’t touch it but circled it with one finger hovering. “What’s the gold surrounding it?”
“That is the Sun in Splendor. Before the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross, three suns appeared in the sky. To calm his anxious men, Edward of York assured them it was a sign of heaven’s favor toward their cause. When his armies were victorious and he became king, he chose to set his York rose in the midst of the sun—in remembrance of Mortimer’s Cross.”
Juliet pondered that. “So someone at Havencross had the personal badge of the King of England?”
“They did. It begs all sorts of questions—not the least of which is, how did it come to be lost in the earth with a handful of coins and a child’s toy?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
ISMAY
OCTOBER 1459
In every society this quarrel made an entrance; so that brother could hardly admit brother into his confidence, or friend a friend, nor could anyone reveal the secrets of his conscience. The combatants on both sides attacked each other whenever they happened to meet, and—now the one and now the other—for the moment gained the victory, while fortune was continually shifting her position.
In her six years with the York family, Ismay had grown accustomed to the high tension and major drama of politics. She accepted the heavily armed retinues among which she—with the duchess or her daughters—traveled, and the intensive arms training always taking place at Ludlow when they were in residence. She no longer looked twice at royal messengers or worried about the attentions of court officials, because she knew herself to be only on the edges of the devouring interest. It was York himself, and his wife’s Neville brother and nephew, Salisbury and Warwick, who consumed all the crown’s attention.
And with Queen Margaret in the ascendant, all the crown’s enmity.
Ismay had never felt the air so tense and taut as had filled Ludlow for the last two months. Sometimes she imagined it cutting against her skin as she moved through her days, but all the fears and damage remained mostly invisible. It showed mainly in sharpened tongues and fragile tempers.
