‘Oh come, cousin.’ Miles’s duke sidestepped the snare. ‘Let us not delude ourselves. He is as grasping as the rest. Why, he is virtually master of Wales.’
‘That hurts?’ asked Gloucester unkindly.
It was then Harry forgot all the lessons, the advice that Miles and Knyvett had crammed into him, for he slammed his cup down and swung full face upon Richard of Gloucester. ‘Listen, I do not know how much convincing you need, but in my opinion unless you act the soldier tomorrow, you and I shall be caught in a snare like a pair of helpless rabbits. The times are hurly-burly. You are going to have to fight for survival, cousin. If the queen crowns the prince within the month, you will not make old bones and neither will your son.’
Miles saw mischief flicker in his grace of Gloucester’s eyes and Harry let out a sigh, realising belatedly that the other duke had already thought it all out.
‘I am tired,’ Richard Plantagenet said, rubbing the heels of his hands against his high forehead. ‘Yes, of course, I have to act soon, but it must be just. I must not appear the aggressor or I shall lose the support of the Royal Council. Do not look so disappointed, all of you. You must understand that to be ratified and remain as Lord Protector, I need men like Suffolk and Howard behind me too. You will see. It is not so easy.’ He paced to the window and glanced through the shutters. ‘I have to have a good reason to arrest Rivers.’
At last Miles was at the throat of history, listening to the Lord Protector discussing arresting the queen’s brother in such a matter-of-fact way. Oh excellent! And at last Harry had found a strong ally and all Miles’s own plans to edge his lord into the council chamber at Westminster were coming to fruition.
Harry’s tail was wagging. ‘Arrest him? What, tonight, while he has so few men with him?’ and then he blanched, along with the rest, as they heard the sound of hooves in the yard outside.
‘God ha’ mercy,’ exclaimed Lovell, his right hand going to the handle of his sword. Only Gloucester, peering out the chink in the windowboards, was calm.
‘Perhaps I have my reason,’ he said grimly, moving across to open the door. His henchman, Ratcliffe, thrust back the curtain and a weary horseman followed him in. ‘Cousin, this is Sir Richard Huddleston, banneret, husband to my lady’s sister.’ He bade the knight abandon courtesies and sit. Lovell passed him a cup of ale. The newcomer drank thirstily and wiped his thin lips with the back of his hand.
‘It is as you thought, my lord. The young king’s men are all packed up for an early start with orders to leave at daybreak. Word is they plan to have the boy crowned straightway in London and prevent you becoming Lord Protector.’
‘And numbers, Richard?’ asked Gloucester. That was the crux.
‘Sir Richard Grey has brought a large force from London. Far greater than ours but by how much we could not tell in the darkness.’
Miles turned exultantly to his lord. ‘Now the wind blows cold.’
Gloucester thrust his fist against his palm and swung round on Ratcliffe. ‘Dick, set a cordon about Lord Rivers’s inn and make sure it is done quietly. I do not want him to suspect anything tonight. No one is to leave. At any sign of movement within there, wake me, whatever the hour. Are you happy to leave this to me, Harry?’ Buckingham nodded and Miles knew a sense of relief. If matters went awry, Buckingham’s men might wriggle out from beneath the mêlée with their political virginity intact. ‘So be it.’ Pleased, Gloucester turned to Lovell. ‘Post guards on every road and footpath out of Northampton. Not one of Rivers’s men must have a chance to warn Grey.’ His hand fell on the seated man’s shoulder. ‘Richard Huddleston, to bed with you!’ Then he gave his hand to Harry, Miles and Knyvett in turn. ‘Good night to you all. We need to rise early to be at Stony Stratford before light.’
The walk back to their inn and the sharp smell of danger in the smoky air cleared Miles’s head of wine. Harry was seething with excitement; if the street had not been as quiet as a tomb, he might have whooped.
‘We still need to be careful.’ Miles tried to poker the enthusiasm.
Knyvett grunted assent, adding, ‘You know what I would do, Harry. Take Ned with you tomorrow. That way if things go amiss at Stony Stratford, you have some cover of good will if Grey orders your arrest. Let Gloucester take the blame.’
‘That is good advice. Wake Lady Haute now, and warn her.’
‘Pah, not I!’ Knyvett answered. ‘Had too much plaguey wine to tiptoe. Don’t want to wake the town, do I? Might alert old Rivers.’
Which was how Miles found himself creeping upstairs like an unfaithful husband. Benet was snoring loud as a hog across the doorway. A poor watchdog! Miles leaned across without waking him and lifted the latch quietly.
Heloise lay fast asleep with the boy curled at her back, their heads silver and gold upon the pillow. No sadness rose in Miles as he stood lonely in the darkness, only the thought that should Heloise have a son, he might one day lie against her back just so like a squirrel kitten. And if their marriage had been otherwise, that son would be his. Gently, Miles stroked a fingertip lightly across her cheek and watched a slender arm free itself from the bedclothes. The glint of light on her eyes told him she had wakened.
He crouched, his fingers hushing her lips. ‘There is no panic. I have a message from his grace.’ She glanced over her shoulder crossly to see if he had woken Ned. ‘Heloise, listen. You are to have the boy ready to leave at two hours before dawn. Try to keep him as quiet as possible. We do not want the entire town to hear his tantrums. Sir William will come for you.’
‘If he must.’ With an oath, she carefully hoisted herself onto one elbow, brushing her hair back behind her ear, her face close enough to kiss. If he had hoped to see a silken shoulder bared, he was relieved by the undershift; there were enough decisions being made for one night. ‘Oh, I am so weary of travelling. Keeping him contented is no jest.’ It was awkward to draw the covers up across Ned’s tiny chest but she managed.
‘Weary! But, changeling, there is a Northampton coven meeting before lauds. If you are interested, we can share a bonfire. They are initiating the new cauldron.’
‘And you have been ladling from it already, I think. What o’clock is it now, sir?’
‘Midnight.’ The lady cursed him.
‘Ah, but I could entertain you until you rise. The bed is warmed and all the lice have already found you and …’
‘Enter—’ And then she realised he was jesting. ‘Away with you! Away before you lose your virtue, sir. If I said yes, you would—’
‘Run a mile? In the dark? Perhaps my virtue might be worth the sacrifice. You look extremely desirable.’
‘Go to!’ she chided softly, glancing at Ned again.
‘Whatever happens tomorrow, Heloise, take care of the child. Stay with him.’
‘You are being ambiguous, sir. What danger will there be?’
‘You have had no dreams then, lady? I am right glad of that.’ He wanted to peel back the sheet and look at her in the starlight – there might be no tomorrow. Only the child’s presence kept him sane. ‘If Rivers should take us all prisoner tomorrow, best to not tell anyone of our handfasting. The Woodvilles are greedy enough to attainder me and take Bramley into their own hands on such a pretext. And if any misfortune happens to me, and well it might, I … upon my soul, changeling, I want you to know I am sorry for the suffering your father and I have put you through, and I have written to my sire, urging him to let you take Bramley for a second dowry without dispute. It will help you find a husband by honest means.’
‘You have had too much wine.’ Warm fingers touched his forehead. ‘Thank you.’
His hand rose to waist her fragile wrist and hold it back. ‘I am not jesting.’ Then he raised her hand to his lips. ‘God keep you, lady.’
Chapter 14
‘Your grace! Sir Miles! Sir William!’ Pershall shook the inn bed that held the three of them. ‘His grace of Gloucester’s man is below.’ Memory burst over Miles like a bucket of cold water and h
e staggered from the bed, doused his face from the ewer and hurried downstairs, thankful he had gone to bed fully clothed.
It was the banneret, Huddleston, bringer of news from the night before, booted, spurred and impatient. ‘Rivers has tried to leave. His grace requests my lord of Buckingham attend him. I trust that is not a problem?’
So it was not to be a song in unison after all.
Miles was in attendance on both dukes when they visited Rivers. The earl was caged at his inn, pacing in his dressing robe, his hair retousled to lend him innocence. The air hung stale save for the expensive musk and sweat emanating from him.
‘My lords,’ he exclaimed. ‘What can you mean by this? My servants have just roused me in panic saying the place is surrounded by your men and none of us is allowed to set foot outside the door.’
‘Yes,’ said Gloucester.
Rivers opened his mouth, fishlike, and shut it again. There was an uncomfortable silence while Gloucester’s brooding countenance waited for the man to damn himself.
‘So you do not trust me. I do not believe it! I ride back fourteen poxy miles out of love and brotherhood, and this is my thanks. What has happened since last night, Gloucester? Has Buckingham and his crony here been spewing poison about me into your ears?’ Miles’s blood chilled beneath Rivers’s stare, and the single candle sputtered at the spittle from the man’s vindictive breath. ‘I should wear good armour on my back if I were you, my Lord Protector!’
Miles swiftly moved around the trestle to defend Harry, but Gloucester slammed the table and rasped out: ‘You were in full riding gear earlier and you gave orders to your men last night to quit Northampton before we were astir. Deny it and there are sufficient witnesses to make a liar of you.’
Calmer, Rivers shrugged. ‘I am sorry that it has come to this and that you have misinterpreted my good intentions. I always considered you a just man, Dickon.’
‘You shall have your justice.’ Gloucester turned to the men-at-arms, thronging the open doorway. ‘Hold him fast here until you receive further orders!’
‘You would not dare!’ hissed Rivers, making play of his superior height, the perfect face marred with a sneer. ‘I have a letter here that your brother wrote to me a full month before he died. Read it! I have full powers to escort the prince to London with as many men as I choose.’
Gloucester took the paper he held out and scanned it at the candle flame. ‘It says here “if need be”. There is no need!’ He handed it to Harry, who thrust it into the consuming flame. ‘Come, cousin, we have to meet the king,’ and he strode out.
With a grin at Miles, Harry bestowed a fulsome smile upon his very articulate brother-in-law, standing there in the last of his glory, ridiculous among the scoured, coarse trestles. ‘Adieu, Anthony. You see I am not the village idiot you always thought me.’
Rivers made no reply, no cutting or foolhardy jest, but just stared, expressionless, at Harry. Then finally he looked at Miles and his face unfroze. ‘Is this your doing? Did you prod this snail out of his shell?’ he sneered. ‘Harry here,’ and he reached out to cuff the duke as though he were a servant. ‘Young Harry always needed a nursemaid.’
The duke ducked back, his hand going to his sword, but Miles grabbed his arm. ‘Leave him, your grace!’
‘See, Rushden, he is spineless.’ The mocking face was bitter, showing age at last. ‘We all knew that at Westminster. Spineless.’
*
Upon his destrier, his mantle’s massive collar raised against the chill, Gloucester looked like a man about to take his rightful place as Lord Protector. It was as well, thought Miles, as they mounted up to quit the town before dawn; the worst danger lay ahead at Stony Stratford.
Spurring down the line with a lighted torch to ensure that Ned was with the Stafford retinue, Miles found Heloise mounted beside Knyvett, her cheeks still creased with sleepiness, and the boy a thumbsucking, sleepy curl in front of her.
‘You have done well, Lady Haute.’ Easing Traveller back, he signalled to Harry, and the entourage set off down Bridge Street to cross the Nene River.
Done well! Heloise growled silently as he left her. What in God’s name was this about? She could smell their fear. Where was Lord Rivers? Why would no one riding close give her a proper answer? God’s mercy, why this journey on such a churned-up road before daylight in the drizzle?
They made poor progress. Ned grew peevish as the sky lightened, distracting Heloise so bitterly with his complaints that she hardly noted the causeway and the bridge leading the weary procession into Stony Stratford. It was the smoky air and yeasty aroma of fresh bread clawing at her empty belly that alerted her. The White Horse, she thought, lifting her drooping shoulders, an inn she had sometimes breakfasted at on provisions trips when her mother was alive. But now?
‘Jesu mercy!’ Grim and tight-lipped, Sir William grabbed Cloud’s reins, keeping Heloise and the boy tightly within the duke’s bodyguard.
‘Amen,’ she agreed in appalled astonishment for ahead of them, the entire high street from one end of the town to the other was perilously filled with footsoldiers. The mutter of ‘Lord Rivers’ mistakenly ran ahead of them, and the Woodville men standing in half-armour with their scallop badges the only gleam about them, looked up bewildered as the Gloucester and Stafford heralds forced their horses through.
‘What’s happening?’ shrilled Ned, sensing the tension in Heloise’s tightening arms as her horse was drawn forward with the rest. She calmed the child but all around them the ordinary people’s minds were emanating terror. It was close to panic in the horsemen protecting her. If the Woodville foot soldiers pulled them from their saddles … Ned should not be here. It was wrong to use a child.
The muttering grew. Urgently the townsfolk began pushing their way out, away from the soldiers. Faces crammed the upper open windows of the merchants’ houses – women’s faces, lined by fear. Heloise anxiously craned to see where the prince might be. The Swan With Two Necks would have been her wager, but they rode in silence past it. The lack of cheering had become terrifying.
In Horse Market, beneath the lily and leopard standards and the damp pennons drooping with sunnes, white lions and falcons perched in fetterlocks, the prince was already on his horse. Whoever they had been waiting for, it was not the dukes, for consternation panicked the faces of the men standing about the twelve year old. A blond man in his twenties, Heloise guessed he must be Sir Richard Grey, the queen’s son by her first marriage, froze as he recognised Gloucester, his complexion turning yellow and sour like expiring milk. Had the young man been of greater rank or more experienced, he would have ordered his escort to sever the two dukes from their retinues. Instead he hesitated and it was a tall, portly bishop in a broad-brimmed hat, who kneed his horse forward to blithely offer greeting. The prince’s other officers followed the bid for peace, but they looked as guilty as a queue of felons lined up for hanging.
Beyond them, Heloise glimpsed a second bishop whose horse’s rein was fisted by a servant – an old, diminutive bishop, round shouldered from too much study, whose expression looked cramped as if both his mind and body ached. For an instant, the narrow eyes beneath the furrowed brow intercepted hers, and then he seemed to catch an inkling of the confrontation about to ensue. A sense of hope flooded to her across the metal-plated shoulders that sat between them, as if the man’s soul was stirring after a winter of sleep.
Then Rushden was at Heloise’s stirrup lifting Ned from her. ‘You are to make your bow to our new king, my lord. Come, madam!’ She hastily dismounted, tidying her veil. The crowd parted for them as he carried the child through.
With fair hair and a long build, the royal stripling in his mourning of blue doublet and matching cote, sat upon his white horse, fair as a faery prince. She tried to send him a message of peace as he studied his uncles’ bent heads in confusion. His grace of Gloucester rose from his obeisance, brushing off a straw that was clinging to his mourning hose. Buckingham, with a brief scowl at the offending cobble
s, lowered himself dutifully.
‘Where is my Uncle Rivers?’ repeated the boy.
‘Your highness, we shall explain if you will but step back inside your inn with us. See, here is Lord Stafford come to greet your grace.’
Buckingham reached out a hand to Ned, and so did Gloucester. With impeccable dignity, the little boy took both dukes’ hands and stepped forward until he looked straight up into the chill blue eyes of Edward V. He showed no fear of any of the horses and Heloise said a silent prayer of thanks that the lesson had been well learned. His father lifted him to kiss the reluctant royal hand held out to him.
‘Now I have done this, can we please have breakfast?’ The five year old’s voice begat a rumble of laughter from the newcomers, but the prince’s men stood like statues, waiting for the blond man’s orders.
‘No haste, is there?’ Buckingham asked the prince affably, straddling his son on his waist with difficulty since he played at father so rarely. ‘My lord of Gloucester and I have not yet breakfasted nor I will be sworn have you, your highness. What say you we return to the lodgings you have just left and talk while breakfast is being cooked?’
Edward V had little choice but to dismount. It was then that Gloucester threw his arms about him, clearly close to tears. The boy accepted his sympathy and with an uncle at either elbow and his tiny cousin at his heels, he returned to the inn he had quit hours earlier. The press of people following them was so great that Heloise was almost cut off from her charge, but Rushden and Sir William flanked her.
‘Where is Lord Rivers?’ she asked her husband.
‘Under arrest,’ he mouthed at her. Jesu! There could have been a bloody battle then and there; the dukes had cleverly avoided a public quarrel that would have sent panic circling out from Stony Stratford across England.
Inside the warm, fetid atmosphere of the inn, Heloise could still sense the mortal fear pulsing in the minds of the prince’s retinue, but one stocky man was distracted from his dilemma as he noted her standing with her hands protectively upon Ned’s shoulders. His brow creased beneath his black hat and he pushed his way across.
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