Jacques sent his servants from the room with a casual hand and chewed his bread thoughtfully before he finally spoke. "Eh bien, mon compère, you are reconsidering your allegiance then?"
"I may have little choice." Richard laid down his spoon, his appetite dull. "There is, however, the matter of my wife being brought before an ecclesiastical court for adultery and, Jesu forbid, other matters. By the way she boasted in her cups last night, Margaret d'Anjou will baste Margery for cooking in the marketplace."
The older man stolidly chewed on, showing no surprise at the news, but Richard felt as though he were being measured for a new cote. "What I am wondering," Jacques remarked eventually, "is just how thin you are." He glanced down apologetically at the belt encompassing his houppelande. "Moi, I am too large a stopper for this particular flask."
His guest raised an eyebrow. "Are you saying you and your friends might help me, Jacques?"
"Because of my father-in-law's murder and for the sake of the town? Why not? You are very fortunate that I can, mon compère." The earth brown eyes glittered with amusement. "Le bon Dieu be praised that Madame 'uddleston has not the generous dimensions of the Queen of France."
With another meal that had taste and substance inside her, Margery felt her inner self revitalizing, like a shoot pushing skyward after a long, freezing winter. Through the barred window she could smell the autumn leaves above the wood smoke and another heavier odor that she suspected came from the nearby lions. Even a few beams of sunlight lit the floor during the morning. But he did not come.
Some of her belongings were brought to her, obviously at his command, among them her girdle purse containing combs and hairpins. What had he told her sisters? Not the truth.
Certes, the truth was that her husband had indeed decided for the winning side. With Ned surely dead by now, Richard Huddleston would be the last man to raise his sword to crown George for the House of York. And she had jeopardized his careful plans. To please the Queen, would he drag her before the bishops and force her to walk barefoot in a thin shift carrying a taper while the crowd hurled filth at her in a fit of hypocritical virtue? And even if he was merciful enough to petition her release, what then? The Queen had promised him a wealthy heiress. He could auction George of Clarence's message for her dowry thrice over.
Pacing the cell, she counted as she had done every day of her captivity, trying to keep her body fit, while she tormented herself. She remembered every hurt and buckled on the armor of hate and self-righteousness, vowing she would survive and the Lord God could damn her enemies to Hell! After all, had she not been steadfast in her loyalty to Ned? But with darkness, the tears flowed for what might have been. The guard banged on the door and cursed her, so she turned her face into the rough fabric of the mattress and cried silently.
She woke from her tormented sleep so swiftly. It was yet night but a man had entered her cell as insidiously as an assassin. She sprang off the mattress and shrank against the wall. The door was nudged open. The single light beyond showed her the two guards slumped against the walls, one of them snoring loudly.
"I hope these fit." Her husband's fingers closed about her wrist and drew her out into the candlelight. He was already unbuckling her belt and holding out the hose. Wordlessly she obeyed. It was he who lifted the gown up over her head and guided her fingers into the leather sleeves. Another shadow materialized beside him from the coils of the stairs and in obedience to Richard's signal, the man heaved one of the guards into the cell and onto the mattress. While Margery transferred her purse to the leather belt he had brought her, Richard, his face taut and grim, rearranged the second guard with his back to the passageway. Then he swiftly fed her discarded clothing out through the guards' arrow-slit window.
She made no attempt to question him. If he could magic her outside the castle, then she would reevaluate her safety later. What she was not expecting was to be led back down to the fouler passageways and then shoved headfirst after his fellow conspirator into a small wooden cupboard at shoulder height.
"I hope you have strong elbows." muttered Richard as he guided her knees up into a crawling position on the ledge and gave her a whack forward as if she were a testy mule.
"Dear Jesu!" she protested.
"Keep moving if you value your life!" he whispered, forcing her onward as he scrambled in after her, and cursing as he maneuvered in order to bolt the small door behind them.
The space immediately behind the wooden cupboard was broad but as Margery edged forward, following the shuffle of the other man's movements, she could feel the walls closing about her. Walls? No, it was rock.
"This is the worst part, madame," her guide reassured her.
"We had to do it twice," Richard pointed out, narrowly avoiding colliding with his wife's boot as she hesitated.
Crawling through burrows could safely be left to rabbits, Richard reflected as they painfully edged the next hundred paces. In patches, the limestone beneath his forearms was smooth as glaze; elsewhere a jagged miscellany of rubble bruised and bit into his knees.
His wife edged forward in the chilly darkness without complaining, but he could hear the very fear in her breathing. It seemed an eternity before he could feel the faint movement of air upon his face. He had been down in the mines his father owned and seen where their men worked. Now he vowed that if he ever set eyes on his inheritance again, he would make his father pay their labors twofold.
Margery collapsed on her arms with a gasp of relief as she emerged into the cavern where Jacques and the other men awaited them. Then she was blinking in wonderment, like an owl caught in daylight, for the roof was at least twelve paces high, knobbed with points shiny as udders, and he doubted she had ever seen the like of it in her life. But there was no time for pointing out the peculiar features of limestone. Richard set his hands upon her thighs and dragged her up onto her knees.
"Felicitations, madame!" Jacques Levallois caught her by the elbows and lifted her to standing before turning to clasp her husband's hand. "It went smoothly?" Of the four men who awaited them, the merchant was the only one unmasked.
"Aye, all to plan. The English would have lost Agincourt had they faced you, mes braves." Richard's grin embraced them all as he clapped a grateful hand on the shoulder of the lanky man who had accompanied him. "But let us move on." He saw Margery's jaw slacken as Jacques tugged a cloth from his belt and bound it about her eyes. She squeaked as one of the large men tossed her up over his shoulder. "All part of the agreement, mousekin," Richard reassured her.
When they finally took off his blindfold, he found himself on the bank of the river beside a small craft. An oarsman sat ready. They had lain Margery in the boat already. He hoped she was up to the journey that faced them. In the light of the waning moon, her face was waxen.
"What can I say?" Richard gratefully embraced the large man and shook each of the others by the hand before he stepped into the boat. The merchant's friends heaved the small vessel forth; it was a little dung pellet of rebellion to hurl against the King who was strangling their town to keep his heir free of pestilence.
Richard said a prayer to St. Christopher and resigned his safety to the boatman, trusting he knew the dangerous eddies and shallows. They were at the mercy of a fast-flowing, cantankerous river.
At his feet Margery stirred, unwinding herself from the cocoon of his cloak, swiftly sending a panicky hand to check that the purse at her belt was still in place. Did she still carry the Duke's message? "Am I the ballast?" she complained.
"No, you are the third oarsman. Keep down."
She lay still, the pike of his shoe across her hip, and sent a prayer to St. Leonard, the saint of prison breakers, then her argumentative nature surfaced again. She raised her head, staring at the stranger who rowed beneath the moon with the stoic expression of a weary horse towing a cart. "But we are heading upriver."
Listening for sounds on the bank, watching for torchlit soldiers, Richard did not answer her. He shook his head and cautioned sile
nce. The oarsman nodded agreement and kept close to the bank; it was the painful but only way to travel upstream against the current. At least the wind was behind them, confusing the wavelets.
Eventually Richard drew her up to sit beside him.
"I thought you were leaving me to the bishops." Her voice was like a raw wound rubbed with salt.
"It was tempting. When is the custom of women upon you again?" There was an angry hiss at the intimacy of the question. "Lady, I want to know how long I can safely keep you garbed in man's attire." His voice lightened. "Of course there are ways to ensure…"
It took them an hour's quarter to cross the river and as much again to free themselves from a sandbank before they struggled farther up the river's northern side. To have gone south from Amboise would have been swifter but there was a weir beneath the bridge and watchmen patrolling it and, besides, the west led to Anjou.
As prearranged, Jacques Levallois had sent horses to meet them four miles upriver and the boatman thankfully left them upon the bank.
"Are you hale enough for hardy riding?" Richard asked with concern.
"Are you?" she threw back at him.
He sighed, "I tell you I would not be a royal messenger to earn my crust. You can rub my saddle sores later, God willing. If aught parts us, seek out Adèle at the street of the silversmiths in Orleans."
"Richard." Margery reached up and kissed him. "Thank you."
By sunrise they were on the road to Blois. Jacques had already dispatched a courier the day before to Adèle in Orleans to warn her of their arrival and to have fresh horses awaiting them. But it was ail too easy, thought Richard. And once word reached King Louis in Tours… oh, yes, a pair of cages would be made ready for them.
He was right. They had to leave the highway as frequently as an old man with a weak bladder and words became as precious as provisions between them. English, like gold, was not to be flashed in any marketplace. In Orleans two days later, Adèle welcomed them, and her hostess, a hospitable silversmith's widow of great heart, gave them food and stabled their weary horses, but by suppertime the news was bad. The King's soldiers around the city were reputed to be as numerous as worms upon a corpse and the mayor had doubled the guards upon the city gate. Richard left for the alehouses by the quai an hour before curfew, seeking a carter who might smuggle them out, leaving Margery hidden in the widow's cellar. He returned jubilantly before the city watch began its march.
"I think our prayers are answered. I have just become reacquainted with a donkey." His wife, not surprisingly, for once was speechless.
Well, if Warwick could kiss Margaret d'Anjou's hand, it was an age for all kinds of miracles. Richard had met up with the players who had entertained them so riotously that night at Angers, sitting at their ale but a lane away. Not only were they leaving next day, ambling northeast, but they also had a wanderer's disdain for authority and frontiers and were willing to hasten their departure to help Richard.
At his request, they sent one of their number out of the city with the fresh horses that Adèle Levallois had obtained for him; at his bidding, they caparisoned the edges of their cart with the painted cloth they used for Noah's flood so that it hung low. Then they nailed canvas to the outside frame of the underbelly leaving one end open.
"In you go, my sweet." There was no time for arguing.
Four of the players lifted Margery and pocketed her between the canvas and the boards.
"Jesu save me! Richard!" Slung beneath the belly of the cart like kittens in a tabby near its time, she could only pray that the driver would choose his way with care.
"Courage! Is it likely to bruise you?"
"No, and there is air enough, but will it hold?"
"With God's help if you do not wriggle. If aught goes wrong, cut your way out after nightfall."
"But what about you?"
"The Devil looks after his own," he answered blithely, crossing himself for insurance, before he took the costume and transformed himself into a masked demon like the rest.
Armed with firecrackers, the mummers left the inn noisily, juggling and clowning along the street, teasing Adèle and Katherine, catching them up like floating planks upon a wave of misrule.
It was a misfortune that the officer in charge of the northern gate appeared to enjoy the petty power that his position gave him over lesser men. He swaggered toward the wagon with the anticipatory expression of a successful bully. But the chief player was ready, positioned behind him, mimicking the man's walk. The swelling crowd loved it. The officer glanced around and saw merely an idle demon. But as he drew near the cart and leaned forward to see inside, the crowd gave a shriek of laughter as the player unbuttoned his costume codpiece and a huge black and scarlet appendage sprang out. At least a yard long, it thwacked into the officer's rear. The man turned, outraged. The onlookers screamed with laughter.
Richard set off the first firecracker and then there were fireworks everywhere, hissing and exploding in among the kirtles and boots. The crowd enjoyed running amok. They surged forward around the cart, the women, chaste and unchaste, screaming as the demons chased them with monstrous feathered pricks snaking in their hands.
Richard gave the nod to the driver and the cart creaked out slowly beneath the gateway in riotous company. He kissed his hand to the Levallois women and swung himself aboard, shaking with laughter as he hauled his costume appendage back into his codpiece. It was only when they were half a mile beyond the outlying villages and no armed horsemen had followed that he buried his head in his hands and thanked God that they had not all been arrested for disturbing the peace and alleged sodomy. He halted the cart where the player was waiting with the horses. His shaken wife was white-lipped as they drew her out like a babe from the straining canvas womb.
For a week they kept with the players. Richard, straw-hatted, played at carter, and the October sun, warm and mellow, lit them past orchards and harvested fields of golden stubble. Margery, her clothing masculine, her hair cropped again, barely left his side.
Fear of pursuit stalked them. They spoke little; she thought a great deal, trying to fathom his motives, hoping that it was more than his sense of duty that had caused him to winkle her out of the fortress. She had been found wanting; she knew that and realized that the foolish admission on their wedding night—that she was carrying the letters—had burned all hope of trust. Yet there was a kindness in the way his glance touched her that carried more than the heat of sunlight.
When he announced his decision to take the horses and to leave the wagons and strike westward, she knew again the cold fear and hugged the memory of the last few days to her.
"Why did we not flee to England?" she asked him, sated with rabbit meat, turning from watching the sparks of the wood fire dance into the darkness on that last evening.
"Because I could be hanged, drawn, and quartered. The accusation of treachery has not been revoked by King Edward, and your father, when he hears from France, no doubt will let it stand." Somewhere in the forest, a wolf howled and she shivered.
"How did Ned talk you into that?" Margery whispered horrified, remembering the dismembered bodies at Southampton, and received the answer in his face of an overgenerous gift. "Oh, sweet Heaven!"
It was what she desired but, dear Jesu, the cost. She wanted to protest her unworthiness, marveling that she still could not plumb the shallowest depths of the man beside her.
But there was more: Richard idly prodded a stick into the embers. "When I was about nine or ten years old and page to your uncle, Lord Montague, I traveled in his retinue to Middleham and there was this child. About six years old she must have been, plumpish but not overly, with long hair loose down her back. I watched her rescue a little pup, the runt of a litter, from three or four boys twice her age and size. They had bagged the little creature and were threatening to throw it into the well. This little girl just stepped into their midst, her small fists upon her nonexistent hips, with a heap of courage and a belief she was right, and she grabb
ed the wriggling bag and cut the creature free, abusing them all the while. I who had watched with amusement and not interfered, for they were older than I, then met her indignant gaze and she thrust the little dog into my arms. 'Here, you have him,' she said, 'and take good care of him. He wants but kindness.' "
Margery frowned in amazement, her lips opening to a cherry's width. "Richard? That was you? All those years ago. You never told me."
"At Warwick I saw her again years later and I remembered. She had grown beautiful. I wanted to go up to her and thrust the descendant of that pup into her arms and say, 'Here, I have done what you bid me, take him and my heart with it. I want but kindness.' "
Tears sparkled in her eyes as she raised them to the dark dome of sky.
"And now we have wasted a great deal of time in quarreling." He took her hand and turned it over, rubbing his fingers across her palm. "I did not want to say this because I thought that it would hurt you more to know, and if I am slain in battle…" He swallowed. She did not speak and he was compelled to falter onward. "I was not going to tell you that I loved you, Margery. I thought it would be easier for you not to know if aught happened but I have learned that my judgment may be green in these matters. Am I right?"
Her smile was watery like a rainbow sky, her voice husky. "Yes, green as grass, so say it, Richard Huddleston."
"I have made many mistakes, Margery, but I know that I am not wrong in loving you."
The firelight danced upon the kind lines of his face as she reached out her hand and touched his cheek.
"In love, sir, as in death, all of us are equal." She eased him to face her and knelt before him, holding his hands in hers. "Before Almighty God, in Whom I trust, I take you Richard Huddleston in love and loyalty until death and I hereby plight you my troth." She stretched upward and kissed his mouth. "Yes?"
"Yes."
Richard's sense of being followed grew as they left the players and journeyed westward now with greater speed. Next day, they sheltered unseen in a wayside copse to watch who came behind them, but only a half-dozen toasted pilgrims, returning in scallop shell tabards from Compostela, were noteworthy. The carriers, messengers, and two merchants with an escort of armed men were not unusual wayfarers.
The Maiden and the Unicorn Page 42