Along their right were trees and enticing pavilions but the procession coiled on relentlessly beneath an inner gatehouse. Its appearance halted Richard in amazement and the Angevin lord and lady following almost walked straight into them. "Would you look at that!" he murmured as Margery tugged at him. Then she followed his gaze and started to share his amusement.
Visiting stonemasons must have scratched their heads and muttered. True, it had four pointed, slate-tiled, curly-brimmed towers at each corner, but it was as if the master builder had been jesting when he filled the space between the old walls. Instead of the gable of the gatehouse rising centered above the middle of the archway entrance, it peaked on one side. Windows, actual glass windows not arrow slits, had been set in each of the building's two levels, not one above the other but at odds with the decorated gable and each other. The golden stones of the four towers were neat and shaped, the long windows had neat sills but the stone in between was all shapes and sizes. It broke every rule.
"I like it," exclaimed Margery, adding softly, "the man who paid for this had humor and taste. Do you think King Rene deliberately commissioned it? The stone is barely weathered."
They passed through the archway with Richard craning around as they emerged to observe the building from the other side. The two rear towers did not match. One rounded turret rose from the second floor, the other from the ground, and the latter was different from the other towers. The roofline was not seamless and rounded but hexagonal.
"I think—" Margery was gazing in admiration at the large windows that had been set in the buildings to their right that flanked a chapel—"that if the food here matches the mood of your whimsical mason, we shall either do very well or we shall be eating subtleties with salted herring."
Now it was possible, of a sudden, to forget the self-interest festering in the visitors' hearts; here were gracious apartments overlooking the river and they could smell the roses and the lavender.
In the logis royal, built by the previous Duke of Anjou, that sat on the noble right of the Great Hall, chambers had been made ready for the Nevilles. The furnishings here were at odds with the elegant chambers they had already passed through. Perhaps it was the Duchess Jeanne's influence. Costly tapestries adorned the walls and the furnishings were newfangled and exquisitely contrived but outrageously overdone—the settles were voluptuous with cushions, the padded stools with velvet seats were overtasseled, while the carvings were skillfully accomplished but overornate and obtrusive. Painted ceilings were crowded with stars. Colors competed and clashed like a huge crushed armful of summer flowers.
Margery sped to the window, exclaimed at being able to see the river, whirled and collapsed on the cushions, and then masked her mouth with her hand to hide laughter at the sheer misplaced opulence.
Huddleston, following her in, set down the small coffer he was carrying and stared about him, struggling to manage his amusement. "Why can you not meet my gaze, Margery?" he challenged, grinning.
Greeting the spontaneous laughter in his eyes, she suddenly caught her breath.
"What is it?" Her husband had seen the change in her; his eyes were kind, concerned. Measuring how truly joyful she had been in his company during the last hour was a revelation to Margery. Dear Jesu, she could count the times she had felt wonderfully happy in her life on the fingers of one hand. The Kingmaker owning her as his daughter, the market day in Amboise, and walking up the hill today. All due to the annoying mesh of male flesh and soul who was regarding her with perplexity. Sweet Heaven, she felt at one with Christ's blind beggar seeing for the first time.
Because he did not know what to say, because something had instantly blown out the joyous candle flame and it was not his fault, Richard reached out an anxious hand to her.
As if she did not wish him to touch her, she gave a little shake, stood up, and swirled out of his orbit. "Is this not… not… remarkable and… ?" Thrusting her hands in the air, embracing the whole room, she spun around, her pleasure a ripple of laughter again.
"And?" he asked, hilarity bubbling up like a holy well replenished by God's blessing.
"And I am just wondering how they have decorated the oubliettes."
He had neither excuse nor leisure to ask where he was sleeping until close to supper. Halting in the doorway that led off a recently finished gallery, he blinked at the wide, beautiful, testered bed. A lady's discarded riding gloves un-tidied it and, near the edge, a stitched wool stocking folded into a neat rectangle snoozed beside a frothy garter.
"This is my bedchamber? There must be some mistake." The Angevin page to the King's chamberlain glowed with local pride. "Mais, you are married to Lord Warwicque's daughter, hein?"
Richard stepped into the room, picked up a leather shoe with an embroidered tongue. "It is well," he answered, but the attendant had gone, transformed, it seemed, into his astonished wife, framed in the doorway now like a startled saint in a dismembered triptych.
"I see you have located the oubliette." Her eyes were solemn.
He was more accustomed to the mischief she had been using as a buckler and gravely raised gloved hands in surrender. "Acquit me. It is your father's meddling."
"This is not wise." How very true. "I will use the trundle in my sister's room."
"As you wish, though I think the Countess will broom you out, and won't King Rene wonder why you scorn his generosity? By the time the lords of Lancaster arrive, this place will be full, as crammed as a summer pie."
She growled at him, snatched up the garter, and moved past looking for her shoes.
"Humor his lordship, mousekin. We are beneath the magnifying glass of Christendom, are we not?"
"Perhaps I should steam it up for him," hissed Margery, crouching down to peer beneath the bed. "After all, I am supposed to be the whore around here."
"Enough!" The missing shoe appeared from his hanging sleeve and landed with an angry thump next to her. "Your father has been told the truth. You are the only one who persists in self-delusion."
Margery rose, brushing her skirts, and watched him huffily turn away, inspecting not only the view across to the square tower of the cathedral but the position of the window in regard to its brethren. A soldier's inspection.
"No!" It was necessary to be firm. The western sun aureoled the competent shoulders, the lordly stance.
"No?" He looked over his shoulder at her, an eyebrow facetiously raised. "What else do you suggest?" His irritation was blatant as a gaudy, painted shield. "And what about tonight? Shall we place Alys between us or maybe Long would be a better bulwark, but he snores—loudly. Do you think this bolster might suffice?" He yanked it from the horizontal. "Or maybe King Rene can find some ancient chastity belt preserved from the Crusades for you to borrow."
"Richard!"
"Ah, I know! The great bed of Ware still lacks a buyer. We could sleep half the castle between us. I could send a pigeon to request an estimate but they might have trouble with the spiral stairs." He folded his arms and scowled.
Margery regarded him warily. Why was it this man of all men could make her inner being awake and stretch wantonly? In his finery, embroidered and fur-edged, he was a spellbinder. Were there charms against men like him? Men whom nature had endowed with a fine blend of poise, muscle, strength? His palpable masculinity and her own desire weakened her.
Devilment and desire bested her judgment. "I hear you only came to France because of me."
Wondering what she was at, Richard folded his lips into a thin line. "My brother Tom has been gossiping." Oh, yes, he had exaggerated to Tom and Will. What could he say to them? Go home, I am the viper in this nest of traitors, the paid-up Judas. He tilted his head suspiciously. "What are you up to now, lady? You want a pretty speech? What was I supposed to say? 'Treason is wonderful. Do as I do.' Dear God, a fine example of a brother I am." The arms unwound, his fingers momentarily splayed, as if helpless against fortune, before he hooked his hands upon his forearms once again.
"They said you wer
e besotted with me." She glided across to him and tiptoed her fingers up the silken ridges of his doublet to tangle in his glossy hair.
It was nearly beyond his power to keep his hands hidden in the upper reaches of his spliced sleeves, his fingers clenched. "Yes, I said that. 'Raddled with lust,' I should have added."
She was exquisitely tormenting him, lips moist and the wide blue eyes coaxing. Richard gently removed the soft hands that scarved his neck. "I have duties, lady, and they are not marital." He intended to leave her, he trusted, bereft. For if the wench thought she could manipulate him by suddenly performing her duty as a wife, then her intellect was as thick as the wall at his back. But behind the mirror of his face that gave her back her own enigmatic smile, he was hopeful.
He suffered for the rest of the day, his mind an internecine war in which resentment belabored lusty anticipation. The enforced separation, both of mind and body from the quarrelsome, provocative, untrustworthy little bastard wench had at least drawn a fretwork across his wounds, but now he was bleeding again. He wanted Margery Neville writhing beneath him in sweet abandonment. And she knew it and was striving to enslave him as he had dreaded she would. She was cleverer than he had anticipated and yet she played with that knowledge as if it were a village football, only kicking the bladder when it came her way, making no effort otherwise.
Oh, patron saint of trundle beds! Thank God she was away from him, enclosed in the gauzy row of women that sat along the opposite board. Even the delicate carp, the spiced viands, the endless platters of delicacies could not distract him from the horses of desire and common sense that were pulling him in two directions.
Actually, it was a donkey that drove away his demons and brought laughter back like the gift of God. Nothing more than a stubborn plaguey ass with two men inside it and a master that yelled abuse. It was an astonishing surprise after the stately entertainments that had been intermeshed with the delivery of each course. The final incongruity that King Rene always delighted in achieving.
It tried to sit on Warwick's lap. It lifted its tail at the Duke of Calabria and dropped cakes of gingerbread from its rear. It emitted sounds that brought blushes and headed toward the ladies. While it was distracted with tidbits from the Duchess of Anjou who was crying with laughter, the Countess discreetly withdrew, firmly ordering Anne to leave with her and Margery followed them regretfully out of duty.
The players worked hard: they sang, they tumbled, they quarreled, they juggled, they disappeared stealthfully one by one and returned as a host of devils to plague the two remaining actors who were mincing up and down as fat merchant sinners. The tridents went everywhere, lifting hems, prodding purses, scaring the dogs until the noise deafened and the two kings rose with their hands over their ears.
Afterward, Richard drank with the players, learning of their meandering travels and whence they were bound. By the time he had done with them, they were happy and soused like herrings. He let them delay him before he finally left the hall, no, not with a swagger—he abhorred swaggards.
The laughter and carousing had strapped him with a breastplate against the despair of a night alone. The wine followed by beer had numbed the aching. All for the best. The Almighty, with the charming waywardness of the Delphic Oracle, had confirmed that celibacy was to be enforced and endured. But the bells of the cathedral sounded lonely and the river Maine was a cold band of silver beneath the moon before he felt his way up the unfamiliar stairs without a candle. The thick stones of the walls were substantial, rough against his fumbling fingers, and for an instant he would have sworn on Our Lady's mantle that he had the wrong room.
Moonlight forced its way through the shutter, missing the coverlet. Margery, trundleless, lay like a question waiting to be answered, the tendrils of honey hair curling over the edge of the sheet. He held his breath. Was she sleeping?
Only a cricket rasped through the stillness. His senses told him she was still awake. He divested himself swiftly of his clothing as if it were aflame. There was no bolster.
Incredibly, neither warp nor weft sheathed her silken skin. The pristine snow slope of back and thigh lured his fingers to slide, and slide he did, one possessive hand between her thighs.
Surprised, she squeaked and wriggled but he held on, testing the moistness of that delightful chasm. What he found there pleased him.
"Your hand is cold, sir," she protested, albeit sleepily.
He brushed his lips against the creamy skin below her ear. "So, my firkin of desire, am I to slake my thirst with you now or do we quarrel first and beget a child later." He felt her tense with anger, and grinning, he withdrew his hand and turned her over, but the sheet came with her. She let her breath out as if deliberately calming herself. Her eyes, wide, watched him, but her expression, her mood, he could not read. Not yet.
Slowly he pulled the sheet away from her coy clasp and eased his gaze over the lovely curves, grateful that there was enough light to make out the contours of that delicious country. "You are curiously amenable, mistress. Are you ailing?"
"I am trying not to joust but the kerchief is down." Her voice was husky. Like scenting rain across a meadow, tears were near he guessed. Confusion, if it might be named an emotion, perhaps tormented her.
His smiling mouth found a corner of hers and teased. "I promise…" He made her part her lips, tasted her sweetness, then drew away to feast his sight again upon her body as he brushed his thumb over the dark peaks of her breasts as if she were the frets of a lute. "I promise that I will not argue with you for the present but as to jousting, lady…" His fingers stroked down her belly, across the soft tangled mound to the most intimate part of her. "As to jousting, I have a lance that needs must penetrate beneath your hauberk."
He felt her gasp and moisten further at his words.
"You are—"
"What?" He bent his head to one sensitive peak.
"Outrageous."
"And very comfortable with tournaments of this nature, if you are thinking of unhorsing me in mid-gallop."
Her fingers burrowed into his hair and forced him to bring his mouth up to hers. She opened her lips beneath his.
He tormented her, one instant demanding, the next withholding, while his fingers echoed his lips until she was slippery and unfulfilled. Her fingers also grew adventurous, caressing him until he was groaning and unable to withstand her. He thrust her hand away and swiftly moved between her legs.
"Richard." She gasped, arching and writhing as his fingers worked at pleasing her, dragging her gently to the abyss. "Please, have mercy." He laughed, exquisitely torturing her before he plunged his shaft toward her womb. He felt her tremble and then sweetly convulse, bringing him his own release.
Afterward, emptied, satiated, he collapsed beside her, his face in the pillow, his breath short.
"Richard." A little hand shook him. "Please, speak, are you ill?"
"Do you mean have I splintered my lance?" He raised himself on his elbows. Of course, one forgot the lady was inexperienced in lovemaking if not in dissembling.
"I suppose I do." He heard the frown in her voice even if he could not see it in her face. "Does it hurt afterward? Are you in pain?"
"Not anymore. Give me time to recover and you may alleviate any further discomforts I have yet to suffer before morning."
She gave a little sigh of relief at his laughter and then added, "We have to talk before morning."
He cursed inwardly. "You and I do not talk, Margery, we argue. You know very well that there will be no resolution of differences by morning. Just because you think you can beguile me between your thighs does not mean that there is any peace between us. This night is but an honest admission of desire on both our parts. At least your father can cease scolding like a grandam."
She thumped her pillow testily for answer and turned on her shoulder. He smiled and edged close so that his body fitted against the softness of her. She wriggled in protest but he held her close, delighting that his strength could encompass and overlap
hers. He buried his face in the web of her sweet-smelling hair. This pleasure could be his every night if there was sufficient privacy—if he could forget that although her body might be his by law, her loyalty was to King Edward.
"Richard, if this meeting tomorrow should result in an alliance, will you support it?"
He tensed. What was she after now? He had already given a wealth of thought to this cause already. Now he had no wish to air the matter and certainly not with Margery Neville.
"Let it come to pass first."
"I hope it does not. Did you see how moved Anne was? Ah, I forgot, of course, you are in her confidence."
"Peace, you shrewmouse. Am I not the fortune seeker you think me?" He sighed, shifting to rest his head back upon his crossed wrists. "I wonder how my Lord Montague will view this alliance if it comes to fruition. He loves King Edward well and it will be a bitter thing to have to choose between his brother and his friend."
"And, of course, your brothers must choose also. Will they support Lord Montague's decision?"
"Our family have always fought on the Nevilles' side. Mayhap they will consult our father in this, should a decision become necessary."
She turned onto her side facing him, her fingers teasing the dark curls upon his chest. "What about you, Margery? Who will you pray for? Your father or the wonderful Ned?"
She withdrew her hand. "I will do anything to prevent this alliance which is why I will go to England." She was reminding him of the pit that lay between them because he had rejected her, always the constant jab of her duty to the infamous Ned. Could she not grasp the nettle at last and see that he, her husband, had the ordering of her life and would outmaneuver the King of France yet.
"Hmm. And if I decide to support this alliance, lady, and command you to support it also?"
The Maiden and the Unicorn Page 32