Buckingham drew a deep breath. “Sorry, Cousin. I guess my nerves are on the raw, what with all that’s happened. It just seems such a pity, doesn’t it? I mean, when all seemed to be going so well for you….”
Richard paused with his cup halfway to his mouth, gave Buckingham a thoughtful, measuring look. Buckingham flushed under the appraisal, rose to pour more wine into a cup already brimming.
Richard hesitated. It would be easy to say, “Look, Harry, I don’t blame you. You should have taken greater care in choosing attendants for Edward, but so should I. I’m not seeking scapegoats.” What Harry obviously needed to hear. So why couldn’t he say it? Was it because Harry had yet to voice the slightest concern for Dickon and Edward? That his primary concern, his only concern, seemed to be in making sure none would hold him accountable for his man’s treachery?
Suddenly he wanted Anne, wanted her desperately. But Anne was at Windsor, would not be joining him at Warwick Castle till next week. She’d wanted to come with him, had insisted that she was feeling fine, had no need for a fortnight of rest. He knew better, knew how exhausted she truly was, knew how hard these past weeks had been on her. But tonight…tonight, he’d have given almost anything to have her here; never had he needed her so much.
The great hall was in darkness, but moonlight filtering in through the windows revealed blanketed bodies lying along the walls; Minster Lovell’s sleeping-space had been stretched to capacity. Detouring around a snoring form at his feet, Richard pushed the door open, stepped out into the inner courtyard.
The sky was scattered with stars, but the air was damp, gave promise of rain before morning. Passing the stables, Richard’s step slowed. Were he back at Middleham, he could have ordered a horse saddled, have taken it out onto the moors. The temptation was very strong, but common sense prevailed. He didn’t know the countryside around Minster Lovell; to ride out alone at night would be to beg for a nasty fall. Would give rise, too, to speculation, to gossip he could ill afford. He was going to have to get used to that somehow, to being the focus of all eyes.
By now he’d reached the river wall. A door beckoned; shoving the bolt back, Richard passed out into the landing dock. The wind was wetter here; clouds were beginning to drift in from the west, smothering stars in a sea of grey. Richard stood for a time on the end of the dock, now and then dropping a small pebble into the inky blackness below. The pebbles were swallowed up in silence; not even a splash marked their passing.
So caught up in his own thoughts that he didn’t hear the footsteps, not at first. Startled, he spun around just as Francis stepped out onto the dock.
“The wind’s rising; it’s like to mean rain,” Francis observed, as if resuming an interrupted conversation, as if it were perfectly normal for them both to be prowling about the manor grounds hours before dawn. He asked no questions and Richard was grateful for that, grateful, too, for Francis’s companionable silence.
Watching as Richard continued to drop pebbles into the river, Francis said with a faint smile, “Do you remember how we used to skip stones over the surface of the moat at Middleham? You think you can still do it?”
Richard tried, found he couldn’t; the stone vanished from sight. “The stone’s not flat enough,” he said, and Francis obligingly agreed with him. Richard held out his fist, let the last of the pebbles slide through his fingers.
“You know what I find myself thinking about, Francis? The dog.” He turned to face Francis. “You see…Dickon loved that dog.”
12
York
September 1483
Emerging from the south door of St Peter’s, Ned blinked. Never had he seen so many people as were now wedged into the churchyard, clustered around the Low-Minster Gates, spilling out into the street. For a moment he held back and Anne took his hand, said reassuringly, “They’re here to honor you, darling. This is your day.”
Ned drew a deep breath, nodded, and let himself be drawn into the vortex of the crowd. It wasn’t as bad as he’d feared; he wasn’t engulfed, after all. Miraculously, space was clearing ahead. The noise still hurt his ears, but it no longer sounded threatening. They’re cheering for us, he told himself. For Papa and Mama. For me, too.
Mama was right; this was his day. He knew the schedule by heart, knew the route they were to take, down Stonegate and Blake Street and then up Lopp Lane back to the Archbishop of York’s Palace. There Papa was to invest him as Prince of Wales. Ned mentally rehearsed his role in the ceremony to come. He was to kneel, and Papa was to give him a golden rod and ring and place a garland upon his head. Papa was also to gird him with a ceremonial sword; he mustn’t forget that. He was very glad his father was to be the one to make him Prince of Wales; if he botched anything, Papa would cover for him.
Never had he seen Stonegate so clean; the rakyers must have been up at dawn to sweep the street clear of debris, dung, straw, and mud. Ned glanced about, admiring the bright arras hangings and tapestries that were stretched across the street above his head. He’d never seen London, though he very much wanted to, but he felt sure not even London could have equaled the welcome York had given his parents. Pageants, three on the day of their entry alone, one of which had a marvelous green dragon that actually belched fire. Banquets, so many he’d lost count. At the Lord Mayor’s dinner, they’d been served a subtlety shaped like Middleham Castle, with saffron iced walls and battlements, a blue frosted moat, and a keep made of almond cake. And yesterday, there’d been a special peformance of the Creed Play for them; he had been bored by the play, which had a lot of talk and not much action, but he’d been proud of the way he’d sat through it without squirming or openly yawning.
“Look, Ned!”
Following his mother’s pointing finger, Ned saw that a fount had been set up across from St Helen’s; it gushed forth with sparkling white wine. Four young girls waited at the fount, clad in white, with free-flowing hair that proclaimed each had known no man. As the procession approached, they released into the sky a score or more of doves.
The maidens in white had presented Richard with a gilded cup from the fount, and the spectators cheered themselves hoarse as he accepted it and drank. Waiting until Ned and Anne had joined him before the fount, Richard handed the cup to Anne, watched with a smile as she drank and then passed it to Ned. Feeling very grown-up, Ned swallowed carefully and then copied his father’s gesture and raised the cup in salute to the people of York. His parents beamed, and Ned felt a glow of pride.
As the procession moved on, Ned fell in step beside his mother again. He wished Johnny could have walked with them. He was sure Johnny would’ve liked to drink from the gilded cup, too. But Johnny was somewhere behind him, midst the nobles and lords of the Church. So was his little cousin Edward, his Uncle George’s son. After Papa invested him as Prince of Wales, Papa was going to knight Johnny and Edward. Ned was glad; they might have felt left out, otherwise.
That made Ned think of his other cousins, the ones Papa and Mama didn’t seem to want to talk about. He’d never met Edward, but he remembered Dickon quite well, from the time his uncle the King had brought Dickon and his sisters to York. It must hurt, to find out they were bastards like that, so sudden. At least Johnny had time to get used to it.
“Papa looks happy, doesn’t he, Mama? I think it pleases him, that the people seem to like him so much.”
“You’re right, Ned; your father is happy today. For which we must thank the good people of York, thank them for this blessed outpouring of love which is, in truth, a…a healing.”
Ned didn’t understand what his mother meant by that last, but he suspected she’d been talking more to herself than to him; he saw how her eyes followed his father, seemed to see no one else. He pondered what she’d said that he did understand, asked at last, “Weren’t the people of London happy, too, that Papa was to be King?”
He saw his mother hesitate, and then she said slowly, “Perhaps not as happy as they are in York, darling, but then, Londoners don’t know your father a
s well as our people do here.”
That made sense to Ned. He nodded, satisfied, and turned his attention again to the crowds thronging both sides of Lopp Lane.
“Did you see, Mama, how all the shops are shut tight? No one at all is working in York today. Even the cookshops and the brothels in Grape Lane are closed for the procession.”
“Ned! How on earth do you know that?”
“I can see for myself, Mama. The cookshops, the goldsmith, the butchers, the bookbinders—all be closed up. I know we didn’t walk in Grape Lane, but I heard some men talking about it just before the High Mass, and they said right plain that the brothels weren’t open. I don’t know what they sell there,” he admitted, “but from the way the men were talking, it sounded like something people like to buy, so it be an especial honor then, that they closed for our procession!”
Ned was puzzled but pleased when his mother began to laugh. He hadn’t meant to make a joke, if indeed he had, but making Mama laugh was no small accomplishment these days. It baffled him; why weren’t Mama and Papa happier now that Papa was King? Ned didn’t understand, but he sensed the strain behind their smiles, a worry that even the cheers of York had been unable to sweep away. He studied his mother now, was heartened to see her mouth still curving upward at the corners. Maybe the magic of this day, his day, would do it, would make the worry go away for good. He would, he decided, try to remember to tell Papa about the brothels in Grape Lane. Maybe it would make Papa laugh, too.
13
Lincoln
October 1483
The sun shone on the hilled city of Lincoln with deceptive warmth, tempting the unwary into believing that summer would linger awhile longer, that the snows and ice-edged winds would come late this year. To a people for whom winter meant early dark and salted meat, washing-water frozen in its laver and nights huddled around smoke-billowing hearths, that was no small blessing. Summer was a season of celebration, winter a time to endure.
Francis was not thinking of freezing dawns and pelting sleet-storms. Like so many others on this mellow October Saturday, he was not thinking beyond the autumnal splendor of the moment. Riding with Rob Percy down Parchmingate Street, he could see the silver-blue gleam of the river below, the gold and russet of the valley beyond. He kept a light hand on the reins, letting his stallion set its own pace, while his thoughts ranged back over the royal progress that had begun twelve weeks ago in the Thames River Valley and was now slowly winding southward back toward London.
They could look back upon it with satisfaction, he thought; with pride, too. Tewkesbury, Coventry, Leicester, Nottingham. In each city, the response had been the same; the people had turned out in large numbers to view their new sovereign, to listen to what Richard had to say, and they liked what they heard. The response of foreign governments had been promising, too. Richard had received a friendly letter from Isabella, Queen of Castile, and a Treaty of Amity was pending between the two kingdoms. James of Scotland had been making conciliatory overtures, proposing an eight-month truce. Best of all, Francis thought with grim relish, that misbegotten spider on the French throne had at last gone to Hellfire Everlasting. Louis had died August 30, and with luck, the regency government set up to rule for his youthful son would be too shaky to intervene in English affairs.
The only cloud in the European sky was hovering over Brittany, where Harry of Lancaster’s Welsh nephew dwelled under the dubious protection of the Duke of Brittany. For years, he’d been dangling Tudor as bait before Edward and Louis, seeking to turn to his own advantage their mutual eagerness to get possession of the Lancastrian pretender. He now sought to play the same game with Richard, intimating he’d turn Tudor over to France unless England agreed to supply Brittany with four thousand archers, at English expense. Richard’s response had been both pithy and profane; Francis grinned, remembering.
It was just as well, he mused, that Brittany learned early on the mettle of the man now England’s anointed King. Would Brittany follow through on the threat, actually yield up Tudor to France? Francis doubted it; Tudor was too valuable a pawn. Unless…unless the Duke of Brittany had an even better iron in the fire. Was that why he was offering of a sudden to sell out Tudor? Was that where Dickon’s nephews had surfaced, in Brittany?
But if that was so, surely there’d be rumors to that effect; word would have gotten out. Francis frowned, unconsciously tightened his grip on the reins. It was the utter silence that baffled him. Men clever enough to smuggle the boys out of the Tower would have been clever enough to get them safe out of the country, too. So why keep their whereabouts a secret? It made no sense.
It was a thought to sour the pleasure he’d been taking in the day. Ere much longer, Dickon was going to have to account for the boys’ disappearance. What if they had no luck in tracing them? What then? In persuading Dickon to keep silent about their disappearance, had he and Buckingham done Dickon a grave disservice? To announce now that they were missing, after a lapse of more than two months…well, he fervently hoped it would not come to that. And what of the boys themselves? Francis felt sure they were being well treated; self-interest would demand as much. But what future had they? To be bartered to the highest bidder like the Tudor pretender? To be nurtured on hate, as Marguerite had done to her son?
“Francis? You look like a man sucking on a festered tooth. What be wrong?”
Francis shook his head. “Nothing, Rob. Nothing at all.” Relieved to see they’d reached their destination, a goldsmith in Mikelgate Street.
The goldsmith had spread out his wares for their inspection. Francis saw at once a pendant sure to delight Véronique, of painted ivory under rock crystal with silver mounting. He set it aside, wondering whether he should wait and give it to her when she joined him in London or send it by messenger to her now at Middleham. He understood why Dickon and Anne had decided to keep their son in Yorkshire for the time being, knew they didn’t want to risk exposing Ned to rumors about his missing cousins, for their disappearance couldn’t be kept secret much longer. He understood, too, why Anne had chosen to accompany Ned back to Middleham, but he wished she hadn’t, for Véronique felt honor-bound to remain with Anne.
Francis picked up the pendant again, smiled wryly. Only six days they’d been apart and here he was brooding as if they were like to be separated for months! Even if the boys weren’t found by then, Anne meant to join Dickon in London by Martinmas, and Véronique would come with her. If he couldn’t get along without the woman for a mere month, he’d best start wondering if she were feeding him love potions! Selecting two ring brooches of silver and turquoise, he bought them for his sisters, watched as Rob picked out a pearl ring for his Joyce.
“Will that be all, my lord?”
Francis hesitated. “I would see your rings. None with stones set within; my wife doesn’t fancy that sort.”
He pretended not to notice Rob’s look of sympathy mixed with speculation. Why didn’t he divorce Anna, loving Véronique as he did? The question Rob would have liked to ask, but never would. It wasn’t as simple, however, as Rob seemed to think. Even assuming he could find grounds to dissolve the marriage, and he was by no means certain that he could, even then, it was just not that simple. For nineteen years Anna had been his wife, his responsibility, and it was not her fault that he could not love her. She’d done all he’d ever asked of her—ran his household, entertained his friends, befriended his sisters, ignored his infidelities. She’d failed in only one of her duties as a wife, and in that, he could not be sure if the failing was hers or his.
Anna desperately wanted to bear a child. She’d gone on more pilgrimages than he could count, prayed fervently to St Margaret that she might conceive, placed mistletoe above their marital bed, mixed feverfew and mandragora in wine, all to no avail. She’d shared his bed since she was fifteen, and in all that time her womb had never quickened.
Anna’s guilt was only a little less than her grief, for all knew that if a marriage was childless, the woman be to blame. And yet….
And yet why was it that a barren woman who was widowed and then remarried so often bore a handful of healthy children for her second husband? How explain that? And what of Véronique? For eight years now she’d lain with him and she, too, was childless. It was true that she took care to hold on to a jasper pebble when they did make love, and she sinned for his sake by drinking brake-root in her wine so that she might not conceive. But other women made use of these safeguards, and still they grew heavy with child.
Then, too, he’d had other bedmates. He was twenty-nine; by that age, most men of his class had sired a couple of bastards. But as far as he knew, not one of the women he’d lain with had ever quickened with his seed. No, he was not at all sure that their barren marriage was Anna’s fault. And until he was, he knew he’d not be able to dissolve the marriage, knew he couldn’t do that to Anna, Anna who so liked being Lady Lovell of Minster Lovell Hall, so proud now that he was England’s Lord Chamberlain, the King’s closest friend and confidant.
Gathering up their purchases, they called for their horses and made a leisurely return back up the hill to the Archbishop of Lincoln’s Palace. But from the moment they entered onto the palace grounds, they sensed something was amiss. Men were loitering about the lower court, gathered in small groups. All normal activities seemed to have been suspended: the stables were untended, the gardens deserted, and the palace cooks had abandoned the kitchen, were clustered around the porch of the great hall.
“What do you suppose be going on?”
“This may sound farfetched, Francis, but do you know what this does remind me of?” Rob sounded uneasy. “Of the way it was at Olney, when we heard that our reinforcements were not going to come, that a Neville-led army was converging upon the village to take King Edward prisoner.”
The Sunne in Splendour Page 102
