"Well, my reputation has certainly grown. How did Huddleston answer that?"
"He promised her he would make your sides ache if you displeased her in any way. And then he said that you and your sister had acted foolishly and of all the women in the world, she, Margaret, was the embodiment of all manly virtues in a woman's body, his rightful queen and his true mistress. I doubt he meant that carnally, of course, for she is too proud to lie with anyone less than a duke. Then she asked him if you were the Duchess's confidante and he said you were like true sisters."
Anger, hot as a smith's coals, smoldered within Margery, but if her friend expected a furious outburst then she would be disappointed. "I am not disputing what you heard, Ankarette, but how did you manage to overhear so much?"
"I was walking Tristan on the leash and he stopped to munch some grass and lift his leg, sniffing around the way he does. They were on the other side of a hedge with their backs to me." She set her hand comfortingly over Margery's clenched fist. "The gossip is that Huddleston has been hand in glove with Lancaster ever since he set foot in France, and he has been keeping some very odd company." She fixed her eye upon Margery. "What was your foolishness?"
"Ever to think that I had my husband's measure." Margery fingered the brooch that Ned had given her to wear as a sign her mission was fulfilled. How fortunate that yesterday's attack had forestalled her telling Huddleston the truth.
She had to plan. She needed to set a pattern and be patient. If all the Englishmen and mercenaries were to leave Amboise and Tours within a few days, a beginning had to be made. Margery was not going to stay a hostage to the Bitch's whims. If the Duke's message was not taken, then she would carry it herself, whatever the cost.
She began to send Alys every day at the same hour to light a candle for her in the church across the valley. Anne, liking the notion, paid Alys to perform the same duty for her. So, God willing, by the time the guards had become used to Alys's daily passing, they might easily mistake the mistress for the maid.
As for Richard Huddleston, if he noticed his wife had managed to avoid him for two days, he gave no sign of it even if her gaze was drawn to him like a moth to a lantern.
The truth was that she was ill-armed to deal with him. She had come so close to confiding in him and her body craved him. Yet to be near him and know he was Queen Margaret's creature was torture. When Matthew brought her a command that she was to visit Error, it offered her no joy.
Richard Huddleston was waiting. As always now, she felt the stirring of desire at seeing him. Clad in half armor, the black leather brigandine and the polished steel encompassing his shoulders lent him a formidable mien, enhancing his masculinity. If only she had been able to harness his strength and intelligence in her enterprise. Why did fortune have to make them enemies once she had realized how much she wanted him?
Drawing closer, she recognized the tenseness in him like a tightened lute string. He was unsmiling but at least he had removed his gauntlets to fondle his dog's ears.
She pretended loudly that this was a chance meeting but he recognized the fear and the uncertainty in her eyes as she looked at him. By Christ's blessed mercy, would this wife of his ever lower her guard and trust him?
"It seems there is nowhere I can speak to you these days without peeping Toms or brigands interrupting. You are in health, mousekin?" His probing gaze warmed as he spoke, reminding her of the fleeting moments when they had been happy in each other's company. She busied herself with pleasing Error.
"What is it you want to say, sir?" Ice calm, was she? Perhaps that was the only way to keep the passion bridled.
Damn Edward! A thousand plagues on him for thrusting this woman into a pool of intrigue deep enough to drown them both. If only Margery could have proved to him on their wretched wedding night that she could keep a secret, then they might have worked together. Yes, and if only Louis's assassins had not murdered Badoux.
His irritation grew. "I leave Amboise within the hour."
The fingers in the dog's hair trembled as she untangled them. Richard was aware that she was trying to hide the fact his news had disconcerted her.
"I see. Then God go with you." The half curtsy was dutiful.
His jaw tightened at such a display of chilly virtue.
"I have made a will, lady. The manors you bring as dowry shall be yours in the event of my death, whoever wins the crown. My family will take you in if you require it of them." He watched her swallow nervously, nodding, her eyes modestly upon her clasped hands. This was not like Margery but some colorless cipher of a wife. "What else? Ah yes, is there any letter you wish me to carry for you? Any delivery you want made?"
At least she looked at him now, slowly shaking her head, her face expressionless.
He held her gaze. "I believe you have a message for the King of England." The blue glance shot sideways but not before he saw the panic in them. "I want it, Margery. The sand is running out and Adèle's father is murdered for it."
"What?" At least the news shook some spirit into her. Disbelief distorted her features. "How do you know this?"
Then the blue eyes widened. Had the hammer at last hit the anvil? "Are you trying to tell me that you are King Edward's man?"
"No, I am a cockroach crawling around this infernal kennel! Are we speaking English here? I am Gloucester's man. You wear the St. Catherine wheel; you have the letter."
She was shaking. By all the Saints, he should have handled this differently but time was not with him and she was watched. The man who followed her in was talking with the kennelboys.
"No, we are not speaking English, Master Huddleston. What is Henri Badoux to do with me?"
"He was the Yorkist agent in Amboise. My man in Tours was killed too. Our enemies are coming too close, Margery. It was King Louis who spied upon us in the bedchamber. It was Clarence who ordered us to be slaughtered. Pass the danger to me now. You have done your share and at far too high a price." He took a step toward her but she shrank back.
"You confuse me, sir. I do not understand any of this." She would have sped toward the door but he blocked her leaving. His fingers snatched off her headdress and drew her against him. The rivets upon his clothing bruised the soft flesh of her bare shoulders as his mouth sought hers.
Margery turned her face this way and that, knowing that within seconds she would be lost. His hands slid from her throat, traced her broad collar, and passed down her shoulders and over her forearms, tantalizing her through the sensual fabric of her sleeves, to fasten behind her and thrust her thighs against him.
She pushed against his chest. "Let me go!"
His painful grip snapped around her forearms. She shivered. This fury was uncontrolled. "I am not finished with you. I will have that letter, Margery."
"I have no letter, you incubus!" she snarled through her teeth, trying to free herself from his swift, iron grasp.
"Have we both come this far for naught?" he hissed. "It was not needful that you understood my presence."
This was the man who had vowed devotion to the Lancastrian Queen. The husband who had agreed to take King Louis's gold. The lover who was never open with her, never set his affection upon the scales to be measured.
"No!" she exclaimed. "I do not follow you and there is nothing to give! Nothing!"
The shackles of his fingers loosened. "I trusted you, lady. And for what thanks? Horns on my head and intimate favors so chastely given. Go to perdition, Margery Huddleston, for I have done with you!" He flung her back against the barrel containing Error's bedding and stooped to retrieve her headdress. "How well this becomes you," he sneered, moving the gauze and satin through his fingers like a rosary. "A pretty, insubstantial nothingness. Here, wench, have it back! And you will not need this again." Plucking the brooch off her bodice with such ferocity that it ripped the fabric, he ground it beneath his spurred heel and left her.
Sobbing, Margery snatched up her veil and battered brooch and stumbled to her feet, her back bruised and aching from th
e fall. Error whined, licking her hand. It was only when one of the blushing kennelboys came across to offer assistance that she found sufficient dignity to leave.
Alys greeted her in the Nevilles' tiring-women's bedchamber, apologetic at the strewn linen and trinkets as Margery stared about her with mounting horror. "It was the master. He had mislaid something. Why, my lady…" Margery threw herself sobbing into her maidservant's arms.
"Oh, Alys, even my headdress."
CHAPTER 26
There were no words long enough, short enough, worthy to curse with. Margery's fury was as sore as an unlanced boil, while the object of her wrath was safely on his way to Honfleur. A Judas indeed, kissing her only to search her person, having come fresh from ransacking her possessions. God deliver him to Hell! If he was truly loyal to York, then it was apparent he had never considered her worthy of his trust. While if he was a servant to Queen Margaret then… Jesu, she had come so close to telling him.
That was the problem. Whose side was Richard Huddleston on? The Queen's, her father's, Ned's, or merely his own? Was he the dog that waited until the lions had torn each other to pieces before he moved in and lapped up the blood?
Nothing made any sense. She sifted the conversations she could remember. There was no answer. He was a reflection in water that changed shape when the wind blew.
Sighing inwardly, she stood beside her father. Arms folded, legs astride, he was surveying the courtyard of armed men like a good peasant watching the turnip tops breaking through the soil. Margery and her sisters had journeyed to Tours with him; anything to assuage their individual miseries. The second party was almost ready to depart; carts lined up, fat with arms and roped with canvas, ready to trundle north like a procession of giant maggots.
"You look pale, daughter. I think you are missing Huddleston at last."
"Missing Huddleston? Ha, like a barrel of sour apples!"
"No child yet?" The Earl put his arm about her and patted her belly. The mere thought of a babe by Huddleston powered the color into her cheeks and played havoc with her inside intricacies.
Warwick flicked her cheek. "When I have England back under my heel, Huddleston shall have manors in plenty."
She made no answer, narrowing her eyes against the flashing cuirasses and shining helms amassing before them.
"Aye, they will all want rewards," her father muttered. "Every man jack of them will need to have his loyalty greased with titles or land. I tell you this, Margery, Neville blood is as good as Plantagenet. By all the Saints, I could make a better king than Ned or him." His gaze fell sourly on Clarence who was making some kind of address to a cluster of bored gunners. "Or the mother's boy."
"Think you King Harry will be fit to govern, my lord?"
He snorted. "Of course not."
"My lord, his majesty seeks you." A French page bowed before them. King Louis waved from the other side of the courtyard.
"My lord, there may be little chance to speak with you again and…" Margery dropped into a curtsy. "I wish you God's protection and I thank you for your care of me all these years."
"It was the only thing I could do for your mother." Warwick's gloved knuckles stroked her cheek. "No, do not ask it, child. I swore an oath of secrecy and her name shall never pass my lips." He set his palm to her brow. "Until we meet again, my blessing upon you, Margaret. Stay with Anne. Lend her your strength. King Louis has sworn to see her wed to the Prince and when the dispensation arrives, the marriage must be made. She must accept her destiny."
Margery watched the men-at-arms bow to him as they parted for him and she wondered if he would be slain within the year or whether she would be kneeling before the uncrowned King of England by the Feast of All Souls.
A few days later, Margery stood on the walls of Amboise and watched the clouds darkening and rolling venomously.
"Why are you up here alone? Did my temper become too much to bear?" Isabella fidgeted beside her, her cheeks flushed with the humidity of August.
"Look at the sky, Bella."
"Oh, yes, I see, well, the peasants will complain that their crops will be battered. I daresay there could be hail in those clouds."
"When there is a storm like this in Normandy then the invasion will begin. My hus—Huddleston said that if a tempest comes, it will scatter the blockade. Our fleet will sail the moment it is past."
"Oh." Isabella hugged her arms to her breast with a shudder despite the unnatural heat while the thunder rumbled through the valley and the heavy air carried with it an impending violence.
Indeed, thought Margery, time to go.
It was a week before God delivered what Margery was praying for, a day of full rain. Only then, clad in Alys's garments, could she pass the drawbridge with the hood of the cloak well down, covering her face.
Anne had sworn to provide lies for her absence and it had been so easy to walk along the main street to the church and kneel in prayer at the mass just as Alys always did. The hard part now would be to hire a horse but she had sufficient money to buy four hooves and silence. She would hide in the church until curfew—Alys had told her where—and perhaps seek the Levallois's help. Mayhap they would sell her a mount. If not, she must plead with a carter to take her to Tours and then hire as best she might.
It was the waiting that was the worst. Hunger and other needs gnawed at her but the old convent training of meditation returned to her. If nothing else, she could try to make her peace with God. Guilt that she could not obey her father's wishes and serve her youngest sister fought against her duty to prevent the war that might destroy England.
The hours dragged by. She heard the bells and the plain-song, the whisper of prayers and the shrieking of a distraught mother. True darkness seemed to tarry, but stiffly she eventually uncurled and crawled out guiltily from beneath the altar of Our Lady.
The evening air was sweet with rain after the incense and the dust but she was not prepared for this—a half dozen men in harness surrounded her, torches spitting in the drizzle.
They took her back into the chateau by the river postern and down into the very bowels of the cliff where the air was dank and fetid and there they kept her.
For over two weeks, if her calculations in this eternal night held any truth, no one had any speech with her. She had no candle. There were rats for company and a bucket that she had to feel her way to. Twice a day, ale, a trencher of coarse bread, and a cup of gruel were pushed through a grating in the door. At least they wanted to keep her alive.
Margery was left to call on every mental strength to keep her sanity. The morning they bought a flint to light the cressets, clean women's garments, and water to cleanse herself was the worst. She ate the good food they left even though she guessed they were tormenting her with hope. The King of France held her like a fly in his web.
A few hours later—was it day or night?—two soldiers hauled her roughly out and dragged her to a smoky chamber lit by wall torches and an iron brazier. Terror almost paralyzed her; a brawny man, his leather apron scarce encompassing his bulging belly, was thrusting branding irons into the glowing coals. A second fellow, sweat dripping down his naked chest, turned and looked her over with crude and gleeful lust. Then she began to scream.
The clout on the ear nearly deafened her, sending her senses reeling as they forced her onto a stool and wrenched her arms back. Struggling wildly availed her little. An iron chain, suspended from a pulley, swung into her and they bound her wrists to it with the leather straps.
It was higher than was comfortable, putting unnatural pressure on her neck and upper back. She jerked wildly. The chain answered with a mocking rattle behind her. Indignity, humiliation, discomfort, anger, fear, and finally heat from the embers, barely a man's pace from her, combined to torment her but there was more to suffer. Much more. The guards left.
The practitioners of torture were waiting.
The second man lifted his apron and rubbed a grimy hand meaningfully across his codpiece and the large man came to stan
d leering beside him. She could imagine their filthy fingers already crawling over her body as they appraised her.
But it was not King Louis who came to stand gloating down on the prisoner; it was Margaret of Anjou. The long-nailed fingers tapping upon her folded arms were tuned to the menace in her smile. Behind her, an amanuensis seated himself upon a stool brought by a sergeant-at-arms, his writing block upon his knee, the quill poised.
"Warwick's bastard and the usurper's whore. What a jewel you are, Mistress Huddleston."
"Madam, what do you mean by this? I have done you no harm." Margery tried to stand but the gaoler thrust her back down with an ugly paw.
"Nor shall you. You do not do things by halves, do you, Margery of Warwick? First the usurper, then his brawling brother, Clarence. Did little Dick of Gloucester lift your skirts as well or is he too much of an impotent runt to try?"
Margery shrugged, ignoring the gibe. "He has two bastard children, I am told, madam."
"But not by you. You are clever enough not be become inconvenienced by your affaires. Is it witchcraft that makes you so palatable to Yorkist upstarts, mistress? Your looks do little for you."
"No, madam," Margery protested gravely. If the Queen's mind settled on witchcraft, the local bishop would readily light a fire in the marketplace to please her.
"We shall come to your adultery anon. We are here for a simple interrogation, mistress. How long or what form it takes lies within your fair hands." Margery swallowed in fear; the smaller man smirked, his calculating eyes on her fingers. Would they begin there? Wrenching her nails out one by one?
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