‘So the Welsh have won after all.’ Sir William, like a weary grandsire, set Ned down from his lap. The child, absorbing every word as Limerick told his story, was staring at his father’s lacklustre eyes while his fingers mischieved his small dagger in and out of its scabbard. Cheeks dimpled in calculation, the tiny fingers continued their play.
‘Stop that!’ snarled Harry, riled to perfection, and simple Benet shambled from behind Bess’s skirts: ‘M-must not p-play with knives, my little l-lord.’ The dagger was taken and dropped into the depths of Benet’s tawny sleeve.
‘It is all up with you, Harry, lad,’ Knyvett, resting on his age like a stick, spoke for the rest of them, ‘but the boy here is a different matter. If the House of York were to tumble, this child and Henry Tudor are all that is left of the old dynasty, and for all your hand-in-glove stuff with my Lady Margaret and that oily bishop out there, I would not trust either of ’em out beyond kissing distance.’ He stood, his mind made up. ‘Whether you will or no, I am taking Ned away as far as I may until you have resolved matters with the king.’
The duke started in protest and then, meeting the expressions of the rest, let his shoulders sink. ‘Do what you will,’ he muttered, leaning against the wall beside the fire, chewing on his knuckle.
‘There are my lands at Kynnardsley,’ offered de la Bere. ‘Your grace?’ The duke shrugged.
‘Then go with them, Dick,’ Miles exclaimed, taking charge. God knows, they could not remain here prevaricating. ‘No argument! Only you can ensure your people give them the shelter they need. Bess must go too, but it is her choice, of course. Take William ap Symon. He is a good man in danger and quick-witted.’ Meeting the younger man’s nod, he swung round on his wife.
‘My lady?’ Heloise looked up from the hearth where she was sprinkling powdered ginger into gispyns of cider. She poked pensively at a floating clove and raised her hazel eyes to Miles.
‘I will stay with you, sir,’ she replied huskily, and then reached out sadly to Ned.
Miles clenched his jaw; the sour knowledge that he now might never live to share the joy of parenthood with her made him grab for the leather map, his voice brusque: ‘Your removal must be done stealthily, Dick, for if the remainder of our force learn that his grace is sending his son away in disguise, we shall lose the rest of them.’ He unscrolled the ink-smudged vellum and frowned at the map’s shortcomings; they would be no worse off with sticks and mud.
‘What do you recommend?’ De la Bere joined him and they stood together at the casement discussing where to cross the River Lugg.
‘Tomorrow, then.’ Harry looked round at his heir as if desperate to hold him, but crippled in affection, the pucker of lip was not enough to entice the child to him.
‘No,’ asserted Sir William. ‘Tonight!’
‘So be it,’ decided de la Bere, his eyes on Bess. ‘Are you agreed, Mistress Elizabeth?’ Nodding like a seeded windblown reed, the girl’s calf-like gaze was selective.
‘I would speak privily with his grace. I pray you all give us leave.’ Miles glanced round at the others for obedience, but his smile for his wife was moist-eyed.
It took him two hours to talk sense into Harry before he finally sought out Heloise. He found her in a field beyond the over-tramped meadows, perched upon a stone wall, her hose-clad legs dangling beside a creviced harebell, and her face turned to the sun like a priestess’s. Plucked yarrow and nettles, herbs for wounds, lay by her thigh. Behind her, the hacked corn blazed defiantly golden.
He sighed deeply, knowing he might not live to see another season’s sowing. ‘This is foolish, my love,’ he muttered, leaning his forearms upon the higgledy stones. ‘I would have you stay close where I may protect you.’
‘So what is decided?’
‘Well, I have persuaded Harry to put on Benet’s well-worn homespun and go north with Ralph and Pershall.’
‘Godsakes,’ whispered Heloise, laughter a relief. ‘He could have worn that for the coronation and built a church with the savings.’
Miles smiled at the irony. ‘Aye, it took much persuasion. God grant the shabbiness will save him. Ralph has a farmstead outside Wem and they are going there. We shall put clouts on their horses’ hooves tonight and lead them forth. Maybe when the hue and cry dies down, Harry can take ship for Brittany and go to Henry Tudor.’
Heloise bit her lip. ‘And what of us?’
‘I will hold matters here for as long as I may.’
‘Hold matters!’ She gripped the wall angrily. ‘And how shall you do that, pray, when their own commander deserts them?’
‘Take that look off your face, changeling. If my Lady Huddleston or Queen Anne were in such danger, my darling, you would do the same as I.’
A huzzah reached them across the meadow from a cluster of soldiers bent over dice. ‘You are risking those poor fools’ lives as well as your own, Miles,’ she muttered. ‘Why not tell them to flee and save themselves?’
‘Of course I shall, once Harry is safely out of Herefordshire.’
‘Harry this, Harry that. I have had a surfeit of Harries. What of us, Miles? We should go to the high sheriff at Hereford and beg King Richard’s mercy.’
And what if he call it a horn, where am I then? And Heloise, what if they named her a witch? ‘Is that what you want? And supposing your wondrously perfect king says no? Lord Hastings did not have a trial.’
‘No, you and Harry saw to that.’
That insult was taken on the chin. ‘Oh my love, I do not know the answer. I am doing what I believe is right.’ He lifted her wrist to his lips. ‘Forgive me, I have brought you nothing but misfortune.’ Gentle hands drew him to her lap and he was grateful for her forgiveness. Winding his arms about her, Miles turned his face to the sun, the wool of her hose against his temple. ‘I do not want us to live in beggary in some cursed foreign land.’ Bitter tears tasted upon his lips. ‘What is Tudor to me? Lancaster, York – what does it matter, if only some king will let me live in peace with you? Christ forgive me, this is all my doing. It was I who whetted Harry’s ambition.’
‘Are you that important?’ answered Heloise. ‘Then I shall come hand in hand with you to Hell. Oh, Miles, my love, Harry’s is a mean spirit. A covetous man with self-interest as his Bible.’ Reaching out a loving hand, she caressed the dark, cropped hair, hewn for a battlehelm. ‘Where are the honours that you deserve?’
‘They would have come but for this folly. He is my friend for all his faults. I shall do this last service for him and then what God wills shall be.’ He carried her hand to his lips. ‘Come, I shall take you back to your lodging.’
Oh, let us all leave, she pleaded silently, raising her face to the boisterous clouds, disperse like the yellow leaves tumbling from the boughs. About her, the rustling beauty of the hedgerow promised peace beyond all earthly trials, but there were cruel ways a man might die and a woman also. The pain is transitory, came the comfortless answer.
Heloise blinked back her tears, proud of Miles Rushden’s nobility of nature. His courage and sense of duty were breaking her heart, but she adored him the more.
‘Oh, my love,’ she whispered as she took his hand.
*
Next morning at Buckingham’s bidding, Heloise was fetched by Martin to Woonton Devereux and bidden by Latimer to attend his grace in the solar. So the fickle duke had changed his mind. With misgivings, she entered to discover Buckingham alone, a sinister armed presence in the dim light. The casement shutters were drawn but the upper lights allowed a scrape of sun, and the duke’s engrained helm – expensive German steel, which had never seen battle – glinted blue with insect lustre. The visor was up, but he had his back to her, poring over the map.
‘Your grace?’ If annoyance had edged its way into her voice, she did not care. She had no stomach for any more niceties. It was ludicrous to curtsey.
What now? She doubted reinforcements were on their way? Rhys ap Thomas with a leek in his helm and a surfeit of apologies for not joining t
heir force at Brecknock? Was she to be parcelled up and sent somewhere with Benet to guard her virtue while he and Miles were slaughtered fighting back to back?
‘Lady Rushden. Forgive the dim light, but I have a megrim.’ Buckingham’s voice was distorted by the high chin piece of the gorget that was one piece with the breastplate. Failure had not extinguished his mocking tone. ‘What is to be done with you?’
‘I might enlighten you after further discussion with my husband, when I can find him.’
The man pretending to be Buckingham ignored her peevishness. ‘I sent for you, madam, because Sir Miles and I have agreed that you should be escorted to the nuns at Hereford without delay.’
‘Like this? Oh yes, I am sure the nuns will take me in. Does your grace have any other good ideas, such as embracing me to your metal heart, your usual strategy when we are alone in bed together?’
That made the helm turn; her clash of gaze with her husband’s steel stare could have made sparks fly. ‘How did you know?’ Exasperation hardened his voice. ‘I thought if I can fool you …’
‘You can fool the rest out there,’ she finished for him. ‘But if Pershall is gone, will they not smell the conspiracy?’
‘Not if they have seen him in Limerick’s cleric’s disguise saddling up for Hereford.’
‘How very imagin—’ The door rattled open before she could finish and Miles abruptly swung away to lean against the chimney breast.
‘I trust I am not interrupting?’ Bishop Morton heaved his great bulk past the doorway. ‘I take it no word has come from our allies while I have been napping?’ He lowered his grossness onto a frail chest, which groaned in protest.
‘What, still here, Morton?’ sneered Miles hoarsely, imitating Buckingham. ‘I wonder you have not dissolved out of sight like salt in water.’
‘I have been tempted. I am afraid God’s hand is against you, my son, and one really must take notice of His opinion.’
Heloise glared at the fat face. Not a flicker of sympathy was there. Morton was as unmoved by the whole business as a rock beset by turbulent sea.
Miles raised a despairing hand to his eyes and half-turned. ‘Should you not say “against us”? Your God is not so clement to you either, Bishop.’
Morton gestured with philosophical acceptance. ‘What is adversity? My hide is tough, but a younger skin pricks more easily. Where is your boy, Buckingham?’
‘Where are the princes?’ retaliated Miles, with a shrug.
He had meant nothing by it, but the answer shook him – the indifferent, despicable answer: ‘Well, you should know the answer to that, my lord High Constab …’
Miles swung round violently and the bishop saw black lashes sketching eyes that had never been a Stafford blue. Morton swallowed, and would have risen but hands powerful as talons grabbed him by the neck of his cassock. ‘This is what you wanted, is it not, you traitor?’ he sneered in a low growl. ‘You and Margaret Beaufort. You have picked us off, one by one, with your sling shots.
‘Are the princes dead then? Are they? By God, if I had been Richard of Gloucester, I would have lopped you on the log that Hastings died on.’ He jabbed at the clerical windpipe with his thumbs, itching to squeeze the air out of that huge throat. ‘You lying, stinking Caiaphas, you would not have recognised our Lord even if you had met him. You would have crucified Him, and laughed.’
‘Sirs, hush!’ Latimer anxiously let himself in and leaned against the closed door. Miles, meeting the chamberlain’s warning, let the bishop subside onto the sagging wood, watching with distaste the thick-ringed hand crawling up through the furrows of flesh to rub at his throat.
Morton’s eyes, like stones, did not change. ‘Alack, Rushden, what a pity you were not born to miniver. The people might have crowned you, unlike the overreaching Harry who took my bait so easily. Let me give you some good advice, dear boy. Was it not our esteemed friend Caxton who wrote: “More is worth a good retreat than a foolish abiding”?’
‘Get your overstuffed carcass out of my sight!’ Miles snarled. ‘Curse you to Hell for the evil your foul viper’s tongue has wrought!’
‘Jealous of my influence, were you, you young hypocrite? Buckingham for king? Dear me, you are so naive in Wales. Your mediocre friend even believed me.’
‘Sir Nicholas, in the name of my “mediocre friend”, lock up this priest before I commit murder, and let no one speak with him.’
Heloise let out her breath as the door closed, her eyes glassy. ‘What did he mean?’
‘Jesu, changeling, I am trying to make sense of this too.’ For a while, Miles was silent, staring into the embers of the fire and then he cursed.
‘Tell me, Miles.’ The syllables were forced.
‘Harry told me last night that he sent the queen a warrant a week ago to take the princes from the Tower during the rising. He could do that as High Constable. It was to be proof of his change of heart. Nay, do not condemn me. I have only just found out. Cat knew, apparently.’
Heloise sank weakly onto the oaken chest, feeling as though her lifeblood had just drained out through her bootsoles. ‘Who—’ Her voice was hoarse. ‘Who carried it?’
‘Margaret’s creature, Bray, one of Morton’s many visitors.’ At her silence, he continued: ‘Harry intended the Woodvilles to rise with him to crown the boy, and then when the princes were found to be missing from the Tower, he hoped to rally all King Richard’s enemies behind him instead.’
‘Including Henry Tudor?’
‘Tudor is due to land on the Dorset coast and Harry was going to pretend to support him as the Lancastrian claimant for the crown.’
‘Pretend?’
‘Yes, hoping King Richard would annihilate Tudor. Then Harry intended to bring Richard down. I could not stop it. I advised him against it over and over – but it was all in hand before we returned to Brecknock. Believe me, I never knew about the warrant until today. Heloise!’
She was cursing Buckingham for all eternity. Had he ordered the boys’ deaths or had Margaret Beaufort used the warrant to give her agents access to murder them?
‘Good friend Harry, whose giddy head is so easily twisted by flattery,’ she spat out. ‘He has made it so easy for them. Do you not see? That evil bishop and Tudor’s poisonous mother have just pulled away the main prop of King Richard’s throne.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Oh God have mercy! Those foul rumours about King Richard wanting the princes dead. I just hope the king had the sense to send those children north while he was out of London.’ She hit her fist against her palm. ‘I hope your Harry dies like a dog in a ditch and goes to Hell. He has left you as a whipping boy, do you not see? We have no future, nothing, Miles. Oh, upon my soul, I hope King Richard can mend the damage that wicked fool has caused!’
‘It is my fault.’
‘Still singing the same old tune, sir?’ She sprang to her feet. ‘Christ’s mercy! Will you make him a gift of your guilt as well? He is not worth it, Miles. He never wa—’
The knock at the door silenced her and Miles strode to the hearth, folding his arms, his back sullen. Latimer came in and bowed, with Nandik skulking in his wake.
‘It is the necromancer, your grace.’ Obeying the twitch of Miles’s fingers, he beckoned Nandik in.
The swagger was gone. Cringing like a dog afraid of a stick, the fellow fell on his knees with a fawning whine: ‘Your grace, I crave permission to leave. I am in fear of my life from your soldiers.’
‘So you were wrong, man.’ Miles managed a whispered imitation of Harry’s voice.
‘Your grace, the weather, I—’
‘Do you imagine I went on your word, you cur?’ Miles spat out contemptuously, lifting his face to Ferrers’s greyhound badge upon the chimney breast. ‘I kept you by me because you fed me praises.’
‘A fellow must make a living where he can, my lord. I could not rise except—’
‘—except by stealth and feeding on men’s dreams.’ Miles finished for him. ‘Get yo
u gone, you fool! You will be lucky if they do not burn you.’
Latimer started forward as Nandik flung his arms around the greaves protecting Miles’s shins, babbling: ‘My lord, return to Brecknock. Say you heard of the rising and were setting out to crush it. Your grace, it was not all lies. I swear the king must die. The planets speak the truth. Another hand may slay him, and your cause may prosper!’
‘A murrain on your cursed prophecies!’ snarled Miles, slamming his palm against the wall. ‘Go!’
‘Fool!’ Latimer grabbed Nandik by the back of the collar and forced him out.
‘What in—’ Miles’s strong hands framed Heloise’s shivering body in an instant and gathered her close. ‘Changeling?’
‘Oh, Jesu, I am sure he was speaking true, Miles. This time he was speaking true.’
*
It took courage to maintain the pretext of the duke’s presence. The second day, Miles commanded everyone to leave and the loyal remnant fled throughout the twilight, some to seek pardon, others to crawl in stealth along the ditches and hedgerows back to Brecknock. Heloise ordered Martin back to her family with letters of farewell, and by dawn, Latimer, the last strand of the spider’s web of fugitives spreading out from Woonton Devereux, was on his way. Bishop Morton had bribed his way out of the cellar the day before. Only Miles, Heloise and poor masterless Benet were left.
The priest from Weobley bravely visited them and they gave Traveller and Cloud into his care. Miles wished he might surrender Heloise and Benet to the good man’s protection, but he might as well have tried to push aside a fortress – two fortresses!
The sheriff’s men arrived at nightfall, entering the unbarred hall in astonishment to find Buckingham’s undented armour, stuffed with cushions and mouldy arras, propped in the solar, staring vacantly, and only three people slumbering fitfully by the fire. A half-dozen men-at-arms contained them in a circle of naked steel while some score looked on. With a sword tip pricking at her throat, Heloise was hauled to her feet. Simple Benet crouched, frightened and moaning, beneath a pointing blade. Miles unscabbarded his sword and proffered it, hilt first, to his captor.
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