I dismissed her and all the other servants and beckoned for the door to be shut.
I ate…alone.
I drank…alone.
And drank again.
Alone.
The light outside the window began to turn golden. Dust motes eddied and I spotted a spider weaving a web high on the roof beams. Different shadows swept around the hall, long shadows as the afternoon drew towards evening.
I began to grow impatient. And nervous. And very, very angry.
Pushing the platter with its greasy leavings away, I rose and began to pace the room. My boot heels squeaked on the wooden floorboards, uneven and polished to a glossy sheen by years of visitors’ passing feet. Years of men who paced, as impatient as I, waiting for news.
I noticed my friend the spider was no longer making his web. He had snared a fly and was wrapping it in a lacy cocoon before he killed and ate it.
I glanced away, out of the narrow, mullioned window, towards pinnacles of the house of the Greyfriars and the emptying Market Square. In the reddening daylight, I could see riders wending their way past All Saints and down Draper’s Row. Woodville’s colours.
At last!
I sat down again, hiding my discomfiture, and listened to the long awaited sounds of hooves on stone outside the Bantam Cock. Voices murmured in the common room below, heavy boots thumped on the inn’s stairs.
I turned around in my chair as Anthony Woodville entered the upstairs hall. I was surprised to see he wore riding clothes covered with grime from his journey. Even if he had reached Northampton later than I and sought my lodgings in haste, I would have thought the fastidious Anthony would have readied himself for the occasion of our meeting by washing at the least. Unless there was some problem. A big problem.
I frowned. I wanted no problems.
“Lord Rivers, I am glad you have arrived at last. I have been waiting all afternoon. I expected you might reach Northampton before me, rather than after. Where his Grace the King? Is he lodged at one of the nearby Inns, or is he in the care of the Greyfriars or the monks of St Andrews or St James?”
Anthony Woodville licked his lips and glanced down towards his grubby boots then up at me with a dazzling open smile. In his youth he had been handsome, just as his sister the Queen was a known beauty; he still was comely enough, I supposed, for all that it mattered. “There has been of necessity a change of plan, your Grace. The King is at Stony Stratford, with the rest of his entourage.”
Stony Stratford! A small town, many miles closer to London than Northampton…and a holding of the Woodville family.
I kept my face blank, showing no emotion. I was good at that; an art learned when my brother George had tormented me when we were children. “And what necessitated this change in plans, Anthony? I had been looking forward to greeting my nephew the King, and offering him consolation in this sad time. He and I need to make swift acquaintance, we know each other barely at all; and as Lord Protector, I will be responsible for the welfare of England until he reaches the age of his majority.”
Anthony nodded and answered smoothly, “The King and I were afraid that there would not be enough room in the inns of Northampton for both my men and yours, Richard. So we decided to push on a few more miles to Stony Stratford. Edward…the King…is safe at a strong house in town guarded by his half-brother, Richard Grey, and Sir Thomas Vaughan.”
“Really,” I said flatly. “I am glad to hear the King is looked after so well by his maternal kinsmen.”
“I understand your dismay at not seeing his Highness, but that will be rectified tomorrow, when you ride out to meet him. He looks forward to the hour of your meeting, and sends his greetings to his most beloved uncle of Gloucester.”
You just made that up, didn’t you, Anthony. I am no fool.
I needed time to think on this matter, decide what course to take. Running through my mind was Will Hastings’ urgent letter: ‘take possession of the person of the King.’ Was Anthony Woodville trying to gull me, had he tried to get the young King to London without my presence? Or did he honestly fear Northampton might be too full, too rowdy?
I gazed at his smooth, calm face; heavy-lidded eyes, like his sister’s, the same greenish colour but less cold. Nothing evident that would indicate either truth or lies.
“You must be weary, Lord Anthony,” I said slowly. “You have ridden long. Here, sit with me and we shall dine.”
I thought I saw an expression that may have been relief flash over Rivers’ even features, and he sat down heavily on a bench. “It is good to see you, Richard,” he said, which perplexed me, for although we had shared exile in Burgundy with Ned, we were hardly close. “Though, alas, it grieves my heart that our meeting should be at such a time of sadness. May God bless the soul of our good King Edward—your brother, my friend. The world will not see his like again.”
“No.” I heaved a sigh, heartfelt enough. “From now onwards, everything will change. Everything.”
He nodded in agreement, staring with a mournful glower at the table’s surface. “Perhaps I should write a poem…a long poem…about Edward.”
“Maybe...” I said, “But…” I added in haste, not wishing to hear some doleful recitation, “such art should wait for another time. Here, you must be hungry; I will have food brought for us.”
We ate and drank and soon Earl Rivers became surprisingly genial. He chatted about Edward the young King, how he was a tall, comely, bright boy, advanced for his age and adept at learning, while being as pious and humble as a monk. This paragon was apparently able to speak multiple languages and converse freely with his elders on subjects more fitting for adults.
“He is a true scion of the family!” Anthony blurted, and then choked into silence, wiping his mouth with a cloth as he remembered to whom he spoke.
I hid a grimace; Anthony clearly did not refer to my family but to the Woodville clan, and I wondered just how my meeting with the youthful King would go. For years, Anthony had cared for Edward at Ludlow; his half-brother Richard Grey spent much time with him too. He knew not much of his family of York, it seemed to me.
We were coming to the end of the first course of our meal, a meat tile slathered with almond paste and crushed crayfish tails, when there was a disturbance in the outside courtyard and then on the stairs that led up to the Hall. I reached to my dagger, in case there was trouble, though a score of my men were stationed about the Inn and I doubted any rascal would manage to slip past them.
Out in the corridor, there was banging and scuffling. I heard one of my squires yelp, “But you…you…can’t just burst in…”
A knock sounded on the door, loud, imperious. “Gloucester, are you in there?” a muffled voice bellowed.
“Who dares to call in such a manner?” I called out, frowning. “What is your business with me?”
The door flew open, banging back against the wall so hard it nearly tore from its hinges. Harry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, strode resolutely into the room, his strides long and purposeful. A huge dyed-green feather bobbed on his fashionable hat, while a Bohun swan pecked out in crystal flapped its wings upon the breast of his crimson doublet. Enormously puffed sleeves were decorated with Stafford knots sewn in bronze wire.
“My Cousin Gloucester!” Even as I went to greet him, his hands descended on my shoulders, dragging me from my chair as he kissed both my cheeks with flamboyant fervour. “So sorrowful, the occasion of our meeting! But it is as God wills. Soon a new Edward will sit upon the throne, the nephew of the two of us. Ah, no, I should have said the three of us.”
Releasing me, he turned to Anthony Woodville. He did not greet him as a kinsman might, but stood legs apart, hands on hips, looking him over as if sizing him up. “Greetings, Rivers. Your sister Catherine sends you felicitations.”
Anthony inclined his head, muttering something inaudible.
“Where’s King Edward then?” asked Buckingham, glancing this way and that.
“At Stony Stratford,” I said, softly.
“Northampton is full.”
Buckingham’s eyes widened and his lips pursed…but only for a solitary moment. Tossing his ostentatious hat upon the table, he flung him down on a bench beside Rivers, who looked most discomfited by the close proximity of his sister’s ebullient husband. “I am hungry. And thirsty. Can I get some decent food in this place, Richard? And some wine that is not sour slop?”
I summoned the innkeeper’s servants, and soon we were at dinner again: bream pasties and beef chunks in a cinnamon sauce, washed down by more muscatel and some strong dark stuff imported from Portugal. I noticed Anthony Woodville was far less enthusiastic now, poking dispiritedly at the food on the trencher before him.
Harry Stafford noticed too. “Not hungry, Rivers?” he inquired with a huge smile. “You are quite hale, are you?”
“I was sated some time ago,” retorted Woodville. “Thank you, my lord Duke, for your concern about my health.”
“Always good to know a man is not sickening. Death can come so fast. Look at our poor, lost King! A man built like a mountain and yet in mere days he was laid low.” Buckingham shook his head sadly. “So strange, especially as he appeared to be recovering after the initial sickness had passed. You must have guessed, though, did you not, Anthony, you and the Queen? There must have been something visible, something abnormal in his aspect? After all, the church bells were rung for him and false reports of his death spread through England long before he breathed his last.”
Though delivered with genial cheer, Buckingham’s statement was blunt and contained a hint of something malicious, something accusatory. I guessed immediately what he was suggesting, and my whole body grew taut as a bowstring. My gaze swept to Anthony Woodville, anxious to see how he responded to Buckingham’s words.
His face was still. White. And he would not meet my eyes….
He rose abruptly, reaching for his travelling cloak. “I am weary, my lords; I have been long on the road. I will be staying at the The Old Bull for the night, and then riding out tomorrow morn after Mass. I will meet you at that time, if that is agreeable, and we will ride together to Stony Stratford to meet with the King.”
“It is agreeable,” I said, without much enthusiasm.
Anthony Woodville gave a small, shallow bow and exited the hall with what seemed an almost indecent haste, as if he could not wait to get away.
Buckingham leapt from his bench and rushed to the window, hawkishly watching the older man depart down Sheep Street. “Do not trust him, Richard.” My cousin’s demeanour had abruptly changed, had gone from mocking overconfidence to terse seriousness.
I rose too and came to stand beside him, gazing out over his shoulder into the dusk. Anthony and his men were vanishing into the distance “What do you mean, Harry?”
“I know the Woodvilles as you do not, Richard, being married to one. His sister. I am privy to things you are not, no matter how good your intelligence might be. Did you know, just before Edward died, that Woodville suddenly appointed the Marquis of Dorset as Deputy Constable of the Tower, handing over his own position? He had no right. And it was almost as if he knew…”
“I cannot believe such a thing, not even of them,” I muttered hoarsely. “Ned…Ned was their provider, their benefactor. What good could it avail them?”
“Ah, poor Gloucester.” He gave me a patronising pat on the arm. “You have been long away from court, haven’t you? The King seldom if ever shared Elizabeth’s bed after the last child was born, preferring the company of his whore, Jane Shore. He even removed Elizabeth as executor of his will. His gifts of lands and money to hundreds of Woodville kin were drying up, the treasury doors were slamming shut… Not that it stopped them in the end. You have heard about the treasury, Richard, up in that cold northern fastness of yours?”
“The treasury? No, I have not. What of it?” My voice was a whisper. Hastings’s letter had mentioned the Woodvilles trying to raise an army but nothing of any other irregular actions by that avaricious clan.
“Edward Woodville—he’s commandeered the fleet. Dorset appointed him. He’s gone off to sea with as much of the money as he could raid from the coffers in one night.”
“Jesu,” I breathed, stunned.
“Yes…” Buckingham whirled dramatically in my direction; his ring-laden finger jabbed into my chest like a dagger. “And there’s more you need to know. The Earl of Essex, the treasurer…he is dead, Richard. Just before his Grace the King. Convenient.”
“Very,” I muttered. A knot of sickness began twisting in my belly, curdling the wine I had downed. Men spoke often of the Woodville’s avarice, but Harry Stafford’s words were beginning to suggest something much worse than mere greed.
“And I am not finished yet,” Harry continued, almost gleefully, although his face was stern. “A month before his Grace the King died, Rivers requested copies of letters granting him full governorship of the Prince of Wales and the right to raise an army. Richard, the French already whisper of poison; aye, they love to slander us, but one never knows, never….”
Turning from the window and Harry, I sat down heavily. My head swam. Could it be true? Surely not. Surely not! “I must think on this…”
“What is there to think about? Even if Edward’s demise was from the ague and nothing sinister, the Woodvilles have behaved abominably…as ever. They plan to cut you out, Richard. Indeed, I believe they plan to kill you.”
“Kill me!” I laughed, but my voice was strained. “Surely you jest, Harry. I am Edward’s brother, uncle to the new King. They would not dare”
“Would they not? It did not stop them from having George killed. It was her, you know, and her dreadful family. Not Edward, angry as he was with Clarence. He would have let him go, after a punishment. I hear these things, Gloucester…in the bedchamber, the only thing my common Woodville wife is good for.”
Still unbelieving, I shook my head.
“They were talking, Richard…talking about what would happen now that the King is dead. Dorset said it, reportedly,’ “We don’t need a lord Protector.” And do you trust this Anthony Woodville?”
“Yes…well, no, I do not know. He was in exile with me in Burgundy. He was loyal to Edward.”
“Aye, but Edward’s gone, and his loyalty is all to her. You know his motto, Richard, Nulle la Vault. No one is a worthy as she.”
Buckingham took hold of my shoulders, turning me in his direction, speaking slowly as if to a child. His voice was low, harmonious, his face reminding me of a fuller version of George’s only with heavy, surprisingly dark brows over intense blue eyes. “Surely you do not believe his tale of the inns being all full? God’s teeth, they used to hold parliaments in Northampton. He is lying, Richard.”
“But if he truly meant to reach London without me, why did he halt and return to Northampton?” I argued, unwilling to accept his words. “Why did he not fare onwards?”
“He most likely would have but he knew you were close behind him. Better to fool you than to rouse your suspicions and have you set of in hot pursuit of his company prepared for battle. I wager he set up his little encampment at Stony Stratford with certain intent—so that his men can waylay you upon the road, do you to death, then tell the world it was the work of brigands. Woodville will cry false salt tears, and they will get your lands…and sole charge of England in the King’s minority! Thank God, I am here to tell you of this treachery. Arrest him, Richard!”
“Arrest him? I cannot…there is no proof. This is madness, Harry!”
“The look on his face at dinner was proof enough for me,” sneered Buckingham. “Look, I will stay here with you tonight. I believe that is the safest course. Tomorrow will be a hard day, my friend. I hope your sword is sharp.”
I was speechless, my head still spinning from the gravity of all I had learned. Buckingham was half out the door. “Where is your room, Richard? I am tired. We will talk some more later, and I will convince you of the veracity of my belief.”
Mutely I pointed down the hallw
ay of the Inn to the closed chamber at the far end. Harry Stafford marched toward it, flung the door open with the same gusto he had shown earlier. My youngest pages squealed; the squires, cleaning my weapons and tending my clothes, glanced up in sudden alarm.
“Off with you all now,” I said sternly, and they scattered.
Buckingham examined the bed, poking at the sheets. “Clean, I hope. I could do without bug bites.”
And with that, he sat on the edge of the bed, violently yanked off one boot and then the other and flung them across the room with abandon. Then he was in the bed with the coverlet over him.
Bemused, I pried off my own boots and crawled in beside my unexpected guest, trying not to brush against him. It was not uncommon to share a bed with a fellow traveller, even when one was of high status; over the years, I had shared with Francis, Rob, Ned and others. But I hardly knew Buckingham, though he was my cousin, and I had certainly not foreseen spending time with him in such an intimate way.
The muscles in my back cramped painfully and I shrugged my shoulders in an attempt to loosen them. I would have to sleep fully dressed tonight; I would not have Harry see my secret, my shame. I briefly debated telling him I would not countenance this unforeseen intrusion …but I lost the will when I heard soft snores coming from his direction. He was already asleep.
Despite being slightly resentful about the unexpected sleeping arrangements, it would not do to make unfriends with Harry Stafford. Bombastic he might be, but he had told me much I would have not known otherwise. In this matter, he might be my only friend to hand—what if he was right about the Woodvilles’ plans for me?
Under the coverlet, I shuddered. In my heart of hearts, I feared—no, knew—Harry was right, at least in part, and I had been played for a fool and betrayed.
As the candles burnt down, I stared off into the gloom of the chamber, watching every shadow, listening to the nightly noises.
I, Richard Plantagenet: Book Two: Loyaulte Me Lie Page 2
