Curious, she rested her fingers in his; her heartbeat quickened at touching him but she masked the impact. "I thought I was condemned like Socrates and not to be borne with. Have you discovered a patch of hemlock worth brewing?"
It drew a strained smile. "No, a bed of nettles. What I have to admire about you, my dear Margery, is your resilience. Come!"
Two youths waited in their path. She had a sense of familiarity and yet… Huddleston dropped her hand and, taking her by the shoulders, held her before him like a cloak to dry.
"Tom, Will, this is your new sister. Margery, my brothers."
Astonishment washed over her as her glance flicked back and forth. She knew from his stern tone that he had not welcomed their arrival.
Neither of the two youths was as tall as her husband, nor did they exude the calm power of command that seemed so natural to him. But she could see that well-chiseled noses prevailed within the family and that their smiles could melt hearts, even if they lacked those wondrous green eyes.
The two young men grinned at each other before the older, stockier of the two took Margery gently by the hands and kissed her cheek. "So this is the lady who cast a net over our Richard's heart."
"I did not know he had one," Margery answered gravely with a curtsy. Huddleston's hands lifted abruptly from her shoulders as if being close to her was contaminating.
The younger lad, flushing as pink as finger pads, shook her hand.
"Excuse me." Richard's voice was cool. "My Lord of Concressault is summoning me. I will leave you to be better acquainted."
"So he did not tell you we were coming. And here was me thinking he'd be that pleased to have us here." Thomas was frowning.
"Oh, not your fault, I assure you. I am the one in his bad books at present," exclaimed Margery brightly, but she was wondering the same as she reined the conversation in a safer direction. "Now I know naught save that one of you is wooing Lord Montague's daughter, Ysabel."
Tom burst out laughing. "Aye, that is Will here. We are both in Lord Montague's service. Our lord has sent us to determine what is happening here in France."
Margery smiled grimly. "My father is still negotiating. Nothing is resolved yet."
"So Richard informs us." Will frowned.
Thomas grinned. "Well, at least our curiosity is sated. We were agog when we heard that he had abducted you."
The younger lad grew bolder. "Aye, he has changed. He never used to do anything without hours of planning. If he had been the Almighty, the Earth would never have been managed in a week."
Margery did not agree. "I have learned not to take him at face value."
Thomas gave her a formal bow but his eyes were impish. "Our mother has asked us to convey her apology to you for his behavior." The humor in that was at least gratifying.
"Aye, that was another reason for coming. Our father was curious to learn what mischief our ambitious Richard had been about."
Margery bit her lip. "Will your father approve of your brother's marriage to me? Pray do not answer if you had rather not."
"Will we have snow afore Christmas at Millom?" Thomas beamed at her. "Mistress, rest you easy. Richard has been negotiating for you since, what say you, Will? Long before Michaelmas? And our father will be pleased to hear that my lord of Warwick has acknowledged you. We were expecting the marriage anyway. Our brother is so besotted."
"Aye, we never thought that love could turn him into such a rebel," Will joined in softly. "He made it clear just now that it is his only reason for being here and we should be fools to commit ourselves to any treason until we knew the full score. Is something wrong? Will you sit?"
She shook her head but it was whirling. Richard Huddleston talking of love? What top was he spinning now?
Her voice emerged huskily. "I… Has Richard told you that we leave for Angers with my father two days hence?"
Will looked at her sharply. "But that is in Anjou."
"Yes, and did he tell you also that my father is to meet with the exiled lords and Queen Margaret?"
Her younger brother-in-law stared scowling at her father, comfortable at Louis's high table upon the dais, and swore softly. "Lord preserve us, Tom, what have we gotten ourselves into here?"
"Please God, nothing as yet. Oh, your grace!"
Margery spun around to find George of Clarence had been standing there smirking. With an arrogant grin at the Huddleston brothers, he took her hand and led her into the set as the musicians struck up. "Your new relatives talking treason already, tsk, tsk."
"Why are you embarrassing me further? Last night—"
"Last night, Meg, has turned out to be a godsend. Because of last night, the old man is taking you to Angers and you can be my eyes and ears. Couldn't be better if I had planned it."
"The Countess thinks I am already in your bed."
He let forth his awful whinny of a laugh that drew all eyes toward them.
"George!"
"Wave to my mother-in-law, Meg. What, no smile? You grow lily-livered, wench. What is the gossip? What says my Lord Montague?" He took her by the waist and whirled her deliberately past the Countess.
"'Nothing as yet. He wants the news from here first."
"Poor fellow, caught between Brother Warwick and dear wonderful Ned. It grows more interesting by the minute."
Margery did not answer. Her father had observed her dancing with George and looked like he wanted to hammer her into the tiled floor with a thunderbolt. She was thankful when the music ended.
"Oh, dear me, here is old Richard trying to cover his horns. Take her, Huddleston, I have warmed her hand for you."
Anne was hanging on Huddleston's arm, her cheeks rose-colored from the dancing but her face was drawn.
Richard's gaze was stone. "Cheer your sister, she fears the future," he said and left them.
CHAPTER 21
"Oh, look there!" Lady Anne's voice was horrified as the barge came into sight of Angers. The company moved to one side of the vessel and had to be swiftly bawled at to stop the whole enterprise capsizing shamefully in full view of Rene of Anjou who was standing on the downstream wharf with his trumpeters.
Richard frowned. She was right. There was no welcome in those stones. The Chateau d'Angers looked as though it must have been the last word in defense when it was built to dominate the confluence of the rivers for some ancient Duke of Anjou.
Massive, unassailable towers, surmounted by the inevitable turrets, glowered down at the river from a formidable eyrie. It would have needed a hundred-foot rope to scale them. Mortared between, like curtains of stone, were massive walls, each some six hundred paces long. But there were no traitors' corpses hanging from them. Not yet.
The city lay closely, like a lover, west of the castle. Judging by the superfluity of gables and spires and the prosperous sprawl beyond its walls, it looked smugly confident that the chateau would protect it. Of course, it was just an illusion; continual bombardment by cannon would make any garrison capitulate eventually even if it did tie down the besieging army for some time. This castle would take months.
"It is a strategic masterpiece, my lady. The view of the country will be magnificent." Richard tried to lighten Lady Anne's gloom. Since he was officially of her household, he had done his best to keep the girl's spirits cheerful by a solicitousness for her comfort. He could tell that his behavior had met with grudging approbation from Margery although she avoided his company as much as she could.
"Evidently they have gone to some trouble," she observed.
Brazen notes were floating across the water toward them but the colors on the shore were bright and joyful. The sunlight sparkled upon jewels not steel.
"A prisoner would not have a view. Master Huddleston." Lady Anne's self-containment was at breaking point; she was not appeased. Her arm was rigid within her half sister's. The girl knew why she had been brought from Amboise.
"True, you can be a prisoner without chains," added Margery, casting her husband a bitter look from benea
th burnished lashes.
"Those kinds of prisoners often build their own Hell," he retaliated. "They wear the shackles on their eyes."
"I have never seen striped towers before, Master Huddleston." Anne Neville, knowing the tension between the two of them, was tactfully toeing the conversation into a safer direction. It had distracted her from her own fear.
Richard shielded his eyes. "Slate. Probably from a nearby quarry. The builders would have used local materials if they could. The dark bands make the castle more fordo they not?" They did.
Anne perused the stonework with a more careful eye. "I forgot you would understand about that."
"About what? Being formidable?" Margery said.
Anne turned from the rail in surprise. "Did you not tell her, Master Huddleston? Why, Margery, his family have quarries and mines aplenty. I would guess Sir John has more income from those than wool or produce, would you not say?" She bestowed a gracious smile upon him.
"You have the right of it, my lady. As for the telling, my wife has but to ask." He inclined his head and left the rail. Oh, Margery did not like that chastisement that was so well deserved. Perhaps now she would think him less an adventurer.
Thank God she had ignored him for the most part during the journey. He had needed time to think. By Christ's blessed mercy, he wondered where their future, any future lay. The times were such that a man might wake and become his brother's enemy by noon. Mayhap, within the next few days, he and his contrary wife would be severed well and truly by the Yorkist king's accursed shadow. Greater matters were afoot and to hoist a canvas against the tide might be to drown.
To others observing him, he must have seemed bemused, watching the oars rise and drop in unison except for that of the bargemaster who used his skillfully to prevent the vessel jolting into the wharf. Richard scanned the castle once more with a sigh and then dropped his gaze to the glittering crowd. The barge ropes were being looped and the planks slammed across the rail.
The favorite hounds leaped ashore and, in their midst, the King of France, beaked hat thrusting forward, greeted the elegant, fattened little rooster who awaited them. There was a masculine, mutual flinging of limbs, sleeves swirling, as if they were true friends, but it was common knowledge that France wanted to wrap its arms around prosperous Anjou and not let go. Then the Earl of Warwick was given the Gallic kiss on either cheek. Another man, somewhat younger, with a ducal coronet set around the brim of his high-crowned hat was introduced. Someone said it must be the Bitch's brother, the Duke of Calabria's.
Richard assisted Lady Anne down the plank and held out his hand to his wife. Margery ignored it with a sweet smile and moved up to stand dutifully at her youngest sister's elbow. His hand itched to wallop the curvaceous rear beneath those slithery folds. And he would take a wager that she had deliberately lowered her neckline to show more cleavage.
Instinct told him he should dread her waywardness. Her present meekness in her father's presence was skin-deep. On the occasions when she could not avoid him, the little malapert teased him subtly, challenging his self-control at every opportunity, using her wit to prick him, her eyes to flash sudden provocative glances. Now that he had plumbed her delicious body, his torment was greater than before. He cursed inwardly; it had been a mistake to admit his body stirred at the sight of her.
Certes, he should never have married her. The widow at Doncaster would have brought him more manors. It was his unchristian lust for the blue-eyed Neville bastard that had landed him in this maelstrom, caught him up into the whirl of events. That was his dilemma: the depth of his miscalculation bothered him. If his judgment had been wrong with her, what other mistakes might he now make? Already his brothers were tarred with treachery, believing in his wisdom. Christ forgive him! His temples ached with the folly of it all.
The King of France was beckoning him to make obeisance to their host. His dog had already been introduced.
Close as touching, old Rene, King of Sicily (which he no longer possessed) and Duke of Anjou (which he did possess) was evidently not a man who spent months on campaign. Cake-colored brocade, stitched with silver and gold thread, clad an overplump belly. Wispy, effete silver curls glinted between his broad rolled brim and shining forehead as he reached up a ringed hand to mop his brow. The other hand protruded from a voluminous, perfumed hanging sleeve, edged with miniver and lined with dark blue silk.
Richard kissed the ducal ring. Above, Louis XI was fulsomely extolling the virtues of Error, and Richard, kneeling, was maneuvered into promises to the Duke.
More dogs. At this rate, if ever he was allowed back into France or Anjou, he would require packhorses to load with puppies. With another bow, he stepped back and aside for others to take his place.
King Rene made an interesting study: a man of peace who had survived the bloody civil wars in France and gripped his duchy still, despite his land-hungry nephew, Louis XI, as a neighbor. This man would have conversed with Jeanne the Witch Maid who had led the French against the English and triumphantly crowned Louis's father. He would have touched goblets with Gilles de Rais who had burned for sacrificing babes to the Devil. He would have opened dreaded letters over the years, missives telling him his son-in-law, Henry VI of Lancaster, was slowly losing every possession on mainland Europe save Calais, and finally that the kingdom of England was lost. How did he comfort a bitter, beggared daughter? One day, my dear, one day… And now one of the men who had wrenched her crown away was here within a dagger's kiss.
"What is to happen now?" muttered Margery.
Richard slowly turned his head. She was waiting for him to offer her his arm. "Ah… well… we all go to mass." They stepped off the wooden boards to confront a cobbled road that led straight up the hill through the city gate to the cathedral. It looked as though some apprentice had let spill a bale of scarlet cloth from the bishop's threshold to the foot of the hill. Impressive. And fatted with people on either side in festive mood.
"Did you know there was a St. Maurice?" His voice sounded light but it was an effort not to worry about the gilded portcullis that might trap them in this optimistic city.
"The French saint of cuckolds and doomed alliances, I hope." She let go of his wrist to scratch her nose, her other gloved hand being occupied in holding her skirts out of the puddle that lay in her immediate path.
"If that is so, I hope we will all pray for guidance." They trudged after Lady Anne and the Duke of Calabria; the fabric, they discovered together, was slippery to walk over with dignity, especially with the sun grilling them through the heavy embroidery.
With a lack of self-consciousness, Margery held up the courtiers following them when she plucked a sprig of heartsease out of the nosegay she had been given and handed it to a tiny girl who sat astride her father's shoulders. The uncalculated kindness pleased her husband. It was one of her virtues.
"What a wealth of new alehouses and stews for you to explore," she declared, staring with blatant interest down each narrow cross-street. "And I do believe they have cleaned the sewers for our visit."
Richard grinned and to annoy her touched his brim to a generously bosomed girl who was fluttering a kerchief at him from a beflowered casement. "Such cleanliness betokens a serious attitude. The women are pretty and the city is wealthy and definitely covetable. I wonder if there are more kingdoms at stake than England's. Do you think they will give us a bedchamber to ourselves, mousekin?"
"I doubt it," retaliated Margery sweetly, though she blushed, "but you may have the dungeon next to mine."
In the cathedral, as the notes of Anjou's best choirboys soared heavenward, Richard let his attention wander to the wheels of tracery and colored glass crushed into the stones high above the transept. Later, his gaze edged along the peerless Bataille tapestry of the Apocalypse. The visions of John, Christ's beloved apostle, upon alternate panels of murrey and azure, stretched beyond his view: years of stitching running around the walls, flowing away from him, the scope and perseverance a lesson. But none of
the Angevins were looking at it. They were all transfixed by their unlikely visitor, the man who had turned their princess hungry into the fields.
Richard could feel some sympathy for his father-in-law. The mass was not just political. The Kingmaker definitely needed to have God amenable if he was about to meet his most bitter enemy—not the easiest task for anyone as stiff-necked as a Neville. The exiled Lancastrian Queen was expected next day and, of course, as this was her childhood home, she would be in her element, whereas her great enemy was a guest among strangers and would have to sustain his politeness.
Warwick stood seemingly at ease between the two kings, but Richard had learned that the stroking of one thumb upon the other and the occasional grind of jaw betrayed moments of uncertainty. Clearly, it was definitely going to be an interesting week. The Kingmaker was facing his apocalypse. He was going to have to dirty his knees groveling to someone.
Richard glanced down at his own knees and reconciled himself to the fact that he was too. The dilemma again. This week might be the fabric of chronicles but Richard still needed to weigh up his own options. Could a Neville-Lancaster alliance—if it actually eventuated—destroy Margery's lazy, brilliant Ned? Did he, an esquire, want to play for high stakes? The irony of it creased his mouth in a grim smile—the high stakes that held the heads of traitors on London Bridge? It was definitely time for a prayer and a request for guidance. He lifted his eyes to the glittering cross. If St. Richard of Chichester was not available, would St. Maurice be interested?
There was a brief reception at the Logis Barrault and then the visitors were escorted by the royal chamberlain across the deep moat of the castle to the best fanfare composition Richard had ever heard. It boded well. Rene the Beloved, they called their king.
"Wait for the drawbridge to—" Margery, again upon his arm like a tethered hawk, abandoned words and blinked in astonishment as they came out from the shadow of the formidable portal. "Goodness, gold within lead!"
He understood perfectly. It was as if the outer walls of the castle were a heavy ugly suit of armor that protected a beautiful, accomplished, young courtier. The buildings within the courtyard came from several different centuries but glass windows had been inserted into the older apartments and the new unweathered additions were built for comfort.
The Maiden and the Unicorn Page 31