He wheeled around, snarling with anger, his hand upon his sword, and then he saw his wife.
Not letting go of the woman, he turned to her once more, speaking with some passion. Guilty as Hell, the lady took a startled look in Margery's direction and made some answer, trying to pull away. He held her there. She looked once more in Margery's direction and struggled fiercely to free herself. He was arguing with her and finally she nodded and he let her go, parting the poles so that she might disappear into the crowd.
Richard picked up the shoe and, smiling tight-lipped, came across to Margery. He was ashen with fatigue, only his eyes held any power.
"Wondering who she was?"
"Yes."
"I am delighted to hear it. Let this mistress pass."
"By Our Lady, sir. How many other women are you expecting?"
The crowd jeered and deliberately lurched against the soldiers.
Margery and Richard faced each other. The soldiers swiveled their heads, relieved by the entertainment.
"You should not have come." He meant it, scowling as he assessed cheeks deprived of sunlight, the damage done to her body, the loss.
"Face my guilt, you mean?" Her lips quivered. "Oh, I have paid for it."
So had he; she could see he bore the agony of the last week like a tomb, shell-like upon his shoulders. She had been resolute but now she was not sure she could face her father, even with Richard Huddleston, like a stranger, beside her. "Do you want to hold my hand too?" It was cruel but she was hurt, as if shot by arrows from all sides.
"Yes, it is a free commodity. I will tell you all… later. I… did my best, but it is never enough." He held out his hand, his eyes questioning her acceptance but she took it and was thankful.
"I fell… it was such folly." She looked away, upward to the soaring pillars, tears heavy on her lashes, dreading the loss, the loneliness that might be hers again. Compassionate fingers gently touched her face, understanding the hidden scars, absolving her.
He could feel her bones too easily, sensed her frailty. "Are you sure you are strong enough for this? I can bring you back later to be alone."
"I am a Neville."
The pressure of his fingers helped her to preserve her dignity as he led her to the foot of the cadavers.
Margery took a deep breath and looked. "Why are they not fully clothed?" She could barely speak.
The earls lay bare-chested, clad only in clean hose. Richard had dispensed with the cloths that had been wrapped around their loins in the cart. God alone knew where the expensive German armor had gone, pilfered as trophies by the dogs that brought them down. He had ordered the wounds cleansed and bathed until they were just sullen red slits.
"Because the men who killed them stripped every shred away and to reclothe them is sheer hypocrisy. Margery, know that I had no hand in killing him." She nodded; but did she hear him? "At least I could do this for them, you understand?"
She stood transfixed. "How long must they… ?"
"Two days."
She could see where they had been stabbed with swords or daggers. Their torsos were littered with thin red mouths, so many that they were commonplace. Christ! As if to stab the Kingmaker ensured a seat in Heaven. The greatest was across her father's belly, half hidden by the woolen hose. But it was the lines of congealed blood across their throats that made the bile rise in her mouth. Only Richard's fingers holding hers kept her upright.
Both men's eyes were closed but a twist of agony had frozen her father's mouth as if Death had ordained it, lest any think he died calmly. Her uncle Montague's expression was one of peace and he looked years younger than her father. She could see the likeness between them, the Neville sandy hair, the freckled skin. Bruises discolored her father's brow and cheeks and more cuts had congealed upon his forearms. He had had his own Passion, his own Easter. Had God deserted him utterly? Was he now in Hell?
Margery sank to her knees, her tears falling soundlessly, heedless of the jeers, and laid her cheek against her father's ringless hand.
Richard, feeling the grief rising in his own eyes, turned away, his face stony, thankful of his soldiers' backs. He could not afford to let her stay long. The crowd was muttering, wanting mementoes.
"Come! There is something you must do." He put an urgent arm about her but she jerked away as if he had lashed her. "Forgive me, Margery, but this is necessary!" Ruthlessly, he forced her away from her father, and out through the moving wall of humanity. Margery struggled but he hauled her into the Lady chapel, condemning the unnatural calm with which Margery's mother crossed herself before she rose and faced them, not bothering to unveil her face.
"Behold your daughter!"
"What!" Margery's fingers fluttered at her throat. She could not breathe. Only the threshold of his hands supported her.
"I see you have my ring still."
Gloved hands set back the black gauze. The older woman's face was not unfamiliar. Margery knew the shape of the nose from mirrors, but the gray eyes of harder mien were those of a stranger. There was dignity, but no love asked.
"Is your curiosity sated now?" There was no giving either.
"I never dreamed you were alive. Who are you?"
"I cannot stay long." The words were directed at Richard as if she were doing him the favor. "Even this carries a risk that is too great a price to pay for curiosity." She looked over Margery, her lips tightening. "You have done well, Margaret, and look to do better since your husband is employed by so worthy a lord as Gloucester. I daresay you do not want my blessing. It is not worth anything." She extended a gloved hand to Richard in farewell but her eyes were still on Margery. "I doubt we shall meet again and if we do, it will be as strangers."
Richard ignored the hand and slid his arm around his wife's trembling shoulders, sensing her anger and disappointment.
"But you cannot go so soon." Margery stepped before the door, her glance beseeching Richard to add argument to hers. "You have told me nothing about yourself. I deserve that at least."
"Do you, Margaret, when fortune has blessed you already with a generous hand? What do you require to know? I have three married sons and two daughters, one wed, a husband who liveth yet and grandchildren besides. They know nothing of my sins nor shall they."
"Margery!" Margery corrected her emphatically and watched her mother—the concept still alien to her—lose control of the conversation. "Madame, they call me Margery that know me best."
The lady recovered. "I regret I cannot claim that honor. I beg you let me pass. My husband will be missing me." Gloved hands lightly held her shoulders and cold lips brushed her cheek so she might set her aside. "I will pray for you, Margery." The gray gaze brushed across Richard's face before returning to her daughter's. "May God bless both of you." She thrust back the veil and turned.
"Wait!" Richard let go of Margery. "I can give you what you desired." He drew a fold of vellum from his breast.
Margery's eyes widened. A lock of hair lay there. She watched, transfixed, as his fingers halved it and held out half to her mother.
The fingers, accepting, shook. The voice that thanked him was of a sudden heavy with pain and a hand darted up behind the veil to stanch the tears. The lady made to go and found control again. "A Dieu, Sir Richard, take better care of her than I have."
Margery sagged against him, words useless. For a moment his mind could not comprehend the trumpets or the cheering.
"Absolve her, mousekin. She risked much in coming to mourn your father. She tells me her husband is a hard, unforgiving man."
"Oh, Richard, I am so blessed in having you." His arms lent her the reassurance she needed. "But it hurts. She— God damn her, she would not even give her name. Did she tell you?"
"No. Hush, my love! Forget but above all, forgive, or the pain will rot your soul and—"
"Sir, sir! My lord of Gloucester is come."
The Duke stood in the archway. He genuflected in deference to Our Lady, and then stepped forward, wincing still at the
pain from his wounded heel, to lay a hand on Margery's shoulder in understanding. His face was pale as ashes.
"Nesfield has taken over, Richard, and I will see the Dean before I go. You must take Margery to my mother at Baynard's. She will be safe there. The Queen's grace and the princesses are returning to sanctuary today so there is now room."
"My mother was here, Dickon."
"Your…" The Duke shook his head in wonderment.
"Holy Paul! I did not know that. Here!" He glanced back to the crowds and the dead, his face pained.
But his earlier meaning had seeped through to Richard, who gently set Margery aside. "She has landed?" he whispered.
Gloucester nodded discreetly.
"Christ defend us, when?"
"At Weymouth, Easter Sunday." The Duke's glance met his in an understanding of the irony—the day of Warwick's death. "I think that God must be with us. It took them three weeks sailing from Honfleur. Go now, you must get some sleep. We march at dawn and I will need you back tonight. There is no help for it."
Richard followed him from the chapel, protesting. "The men are weary. They cannot march and fight."
"They can and they will. The King is set upon it." Gloucester gravely regarded the island of candles burning within the sea of awed faces now turned to him. "By Holy Paul, here was great honor paid, albeit subtly. Richard, you have done well. I—I could not have wished it better executed." Turning away, he blinked up at the stained glass, his young face wretched. "None of this should have happened but the Kingmaker would have it so."
Margery bowed her head with a sob.
Richard set a warning hand upon his shoulder. "My lord, the Dean approaches."
With a deep sigh the Duke turned, his sorrow visored. "Then leave me to give orders for the coffining." He looked to Margery. "Mayhap Isabella and Anne are now in England and will appreciate your company at the burial when we can free them. They will have heard the news by now, I imagine."
Margery could not answer the Duke. The tears came at last and Richard slid his arm beneath her knees and carried her out of the cathedral.
"I am hungry," he said, setting her feet on the cobblestones but keeping her within the warmth of his arms. "I cannot face delivering you to her grace the Duchess of York on an empty belly. The living must eat and I know of an honest cookshop in the Strand. What say you, Lady Huddleston?"
"Yes, I did listen." Her smile watery, she reached up a trembling hand to stroke his dark hair back beneath his sallet. "And Tom and Will?"
He caught her tightly to him, hiding his face against her cap and veil, longing to feel her hair soft and comforting against his cheek. "Our poor babe will have one uncle to carry his soul to Christ."
"Oh, Richard." She eased him back, her eyes hungry on his face, as if she were trying to etch that instant into her memory for eternity, her tears falling for their dead. By morning her touch would be a memory again. "You are all I have, all I desire in this world. Sweet Jesu, Richard, what if Queen Margaret wins?"
This might be the only today left to them. He lifted his hands to her cheeks. "A few hours, mousekin, let's spend them wisely." He narrowed his eyes at the steeple of Paul's and the flock of birds wheeling around the spire. "What's done is done."
The year of Our Lord 1471 would be a summer to beget children and say masses for the dead, reflected Richard, as he rode out of the town of Tewkesbury in early May with fresh battle scars. The Yorkist army, racing from London, had successfully blocked Margaret d'Anjou's push northward to link up with her allies in Cheshire. The necessity of crossing the Severn at Tewkesbury had been fatal to her army, and there the two forces had locked horns.
Usually preoccupied with mustard making, their senses still sizzled from celebrating May Day, the people of Tewkesbury had stoically helped to bury the dead. They had already renamed the field across the river from their abbey, "Bloody Meadow."
The ride back to London with his men was not comfortable; Richard's bandaged shoulder throbbed badly, the same shoulder that George of Clarence's assassins had ripped open by the Loire, and he was haunted by the memory of the recent battle. But the House of York had won. The battle of Tewkesbury was over, not with glory, not with honor—it had been a bloody rout, the Lancastrian army out of control, its leaders divided and suspicious. Prince Edouard, inexperienced, for once without his mother, had been slain fleeing toward the abbey and those who had reached the sanctuary had been hauled out to execution. King Edward would have no more traitors.
Only the Earls of Oxford and Pembroke had sped to safety. Margaret d'Anjou, hysterical and mad with her son's loss, was to be held prisoner in the Tower. The Countess of Warwick had withdrawn into sanctuary at Beaulieu Abbey and Isabella and Anne were already on their way to Westminster, escorted by the Duke of Clarence's men. The Duke of Gloucester had been dispatched to deal with a rising in Kent but he had taken only the men hale enough to ride hard and fast. "Go to Margery," he told Richard. "And have that shoulder attended to."
Richard tried to clean the killings from his mind as he journeyed, but every night he relived the horror. The smell of the blood of a slaughtered sheep in one inn yard had sent him stumbling to douse his face at the pump. And yet he could not help but be grateful for God's mercy. Was not the May sun warm upon his face, the fields of shooting grain peaceful to his sight? In the villages he heard the laughter of children and in the forests the cuckoos calling once again. Would England be a better place?
At Baynard's castle, Margery ran down the steps to throw her arms about him and weep with joy. Richard was too weary to talk. Sleep in her arms would be a blessing.
The diadems had been freed from the coffers cobwebbing in Westminster sanctuary. Silken skirts, gossamer veils, sparkling caps, and shimmering cones, unworn during the brief eclipse of the Yorkist sun, were shaken from the presses and aired in the winds of summer. The season of York was come again and the King, tall and glittering with cloth of gold, sat feasting in glory once more in the Great Hall at Westminster.
"You wish me to negotiate with her highness?" Richard Huddleston asked his wife as he admired Edward's beautiful Queen. "It would give her Tuesday evenings free."
"Perhaps if you have a word with Lord Hastings, he might write me into Ned's ledger for an hour on Wednesdays after noon."
Richard's arm tightened about her waist. "Try it and I will join Jasper Tudor and his nephew in Brittany. The University of Oxford is putting treason into the degree requirements next Michaelmas. Ah, the sun it shineth…"
The King impatiently descended the steps of the dais, frowning down at the Duke of Gloucester. "That Burgundian dance, brother, surely you remember? Where is my lady Huddleston?"
Since none of the bejeweled throng about him had ever heard of that person, the King crossed the floor and found her for himself. "Come, cousin." He grabbed her hand and drew her into the center of the hall. "Now, Dickon, take her left hand."
For Margery, it was like the old happy days at Warwick come again. Beaming with pride, she stood with the King of England and the Duke of Gloucester holding her hands, waiting for Ned to signal the viol players to begin.
"Who is that woman?" asked somebody rather too loudly.
"Hold!" The King carried Margery's lingers to his lips and straightened up to grin at the hallful of nobility. "We present to you our beloved kinswoman, Margery Neville, who has done us great service."
"Now they will think I am your mistress," muttered Margery, curtsying, extremely put out at the ambiguity of the statement. She sent an apologetic glance to Richard Huddleston.
"That can be remedied," laughed Dickon. "I never kiss Ned's mistresses. Cousin, your servant." He bowed and then charmingly kissed her cheek.
"Not good enough!" exclaimed Margery, letting go both their hands and folding her arms. "No dance!"
For an instant, Edward of England was taken aback. Dickon laughed, raised his hands, and silence fell again. He bowed and gestured to the King to speak.
"Our enti
rely beloved cousin is the natural daughter of the late traitor, Richard Neville. This lady has our favor and if any man slander her from this day forth, then he shall have quarrel with us and with our brother Gloucester."
He turned to Margery and inclined his head. "Now, sweet heart," he growled, smiling, "please let us show them this Burgundian dance."
"Jealous?" The Duke of Clarence had materialized like Satan at Richard Huddleston's elbow.
"No." Richard did not bother to turn his head. "But I suspect others may be.'" He heard the hiss of anger and knew the pointed words had slid home like a dagger.
"You think yourself more clever than the rest of us, Huddleston, but you will never rise in the world."
Richard smiled coldly. "Then at least I shall keep my head on my shoulders. God grant you contentment too, my lord."
She came to Richard as the dance ended, love in her heart, and was relieved to read no envy in his face.
"What was George saying?"
"Mischief making. By Christ's blessed mercy, I dare swear there are many here who will regret he is still with us."
"Hush." She halted and touched his lips gently with her fingers. "Dickon has asked us to go north with him and join his household after his marriage to Anne. Would that please you?" He grinned. "Oh, sweet Jesu, you know already!"
She tried to tug her hand away but Richard kept it, laughing and drawing her to him. "I love you."
Two arms crept about his waist and she nestled against him, careless of the stares of their betters. He closed his eyes briefly and sent a fleeting prayer of thanks toward the hammer beams.
Margery raised her head and peeped up at him fearfully. "I am so happy tonight. You will never stop loving me, will you? You are all I have, all I desire."
He raised an eyebrow. " 'Mon seul désir.' But what of your freedom, Lady Huddleston?"
"I must eat my words, is that it? Very well, my love, here I am more free within these walls than in my entire life." She danced her fingers meaningfully up his arms to rest on his broad shoulders.
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