His green gaze blessed her. "The candles are lit and the great doors are thrown wide. Can you hear the music?"
Her eyes sparkled with blue fire. "A love song?"
"Yes. Come."
Hand in hand they walked from the Great Hall. Ankarette caught Richard's arm and whispered as they went past.
Margery hesitated upon the threshold. "What was that Ankarette just said to you?"
Richard smiled. "Just a kind word about unicorns."
HISTORY NOTE
Sources on Sir Richard Huddleston and his family appear somewhat sparse and contradictory but it is known that he did gain high military rank; in July 1482, he was made a knight banneret by the Duke of Gloucester, the future King Richard III, during the campaign against the Scots. He was also appointed as a Knight of the Body to King Richard and held several offices in Wales, including Constable of Beau-marts castle.
Dame Margaret Huddleston was one of the few ladies invited in her own right to the coronation of her half sister, Anne Neville, and King Richard III in 1483. She and Richard Huddleston had three children who lived to adulthood, Richard, Johanne, and Margaret.
The widowed Countess of Warwick never had her lands restored to her. They were divided between her daughters. She eventually left sanctuary at Beaulieu Abbey and made her home with her daughter, Anne, and Richard ("Dickon") of Gloucester at Middleham in Yorkshire.
George, Duke of Clarence, continued to anger his brothers. According to the contemporary Ingulph's Chronicle of the Abbey of Croyland, he attempted to prevent Gloucester marrying Anne Neville by disguising her as a cookmaid and hiding her. Gloucester found her and took her to sanctuary at St. Martin-le-Grand while a marriage dispensation was sought from the Pope.
Isabella, Duchess of Clarence, died in 1476, probably from complications following childbirth, but a few months later the Duke of Clarence sent eighty men-at-arms to arrest Ankarette Twynhoe. She was taken to the town of Warwick and accused of poisoning Isabella. She protested her innocence but was hanged.
The Duke's high-handed action infuriated Edward IV. In retaliation, the Duke's retainer, Thomas Burdett, was found guilty of treason and necromancy by a commission of the Lords and hanged. The Duke accused the King of seeking his destruction. Louis XI further fanned Edward IV's anger by writing to him that George of Clarence was seeking to marry the heiress to the Duchy of Burgundy so that he might make war on England. Finally, for this and other reasons, Edward ordered his brother's arrest. In 1478 George was privately executed at the Tower of London, having been condemned to death for treason by the judgment of his peers.
Margaret d'Anjou was eventually ransomed by Louis XI in 1475 for 50,000 crowns on condition that she surrendered her right to inherit the Duchy of Anjou to him. Philippe de Commynes eventually deserted Burgundy and became one of Louis XI's advisers.
Error, Richard Huddleston's dog, traveled to Cumbria with Matthew Long after the Battle of Barnet and was reunited with his master later in 1471.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Information, inspiration, help, and suggestions came from many people and if anyone feels they have not been properly thanked here, please forgive the oversight.
I am grateful to my parents for giving me the double whammy of history and writing DNA that has dictated my leisure and shaped my ambitions, and for indulging our shared love of history whenever we are together. My husband deserves sweet praise, especially for his patience in being hauled around so many castles in England and France on our annual leave. My daughter and son, not to be left out, insist on being thanked here for putting up with a mother whose thoughts were frequently in the fifteenth century.
It has also been my good fortune to belong to two writers groups of the Romance Writers of Australia; their friendship, constructive criticism, and unselfish support have been invaluable and I wish them every success in their own endeavors. Delamere Usher, Chris Stinson, Elizabeth Lhuede, and Antonia Lomny deserve special thanks. Wendy Brennan and the late Frank Brennan must not be forgotten either, both for the gift of their time and expertise and for teaching me how important laughter is.
Thanks are due also to the Sydney Branch of the Richard III Society, and Ricardians Geoffrey Wheeler in London and Mar-jorie Smith in Cumbria for information on Richard Huddleston.
Angela Iliff and Anne Phillips have been excellent sounding boards on matters historical and I am most grateful to them for their advice.
Amanda O'Connell deserves thanks for painstakingly querying everything from "brigandines" to "houppelandes."
Finally, my most sincere gratitude and thanks to my editors, Stephanie Kip in New York and Fiona Henderson in Sydney, who believed that Margery and Richard's story was worth telling.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ISOLDE MARTYN was born in Warwickshire, and grew up in London with the unquenchable desire to become a historical novelist. It took a while. In the meantime, she worked variously as a university tutor, book editor, archivist, freelance historian, reviewer, and parent. She specialized in the Yorkist era for her history honors degree and is a former branch chairperson of the Richard III Society. She is married to a geological consultant and lives in Sydney. Isolde is a member of Romance Writers of America. The Maiden and the Unicorn is her first novel; her second, set in the reign of King Edward II, is forthcoming from Bantam Books in summer 2000.
If you loved The Maiden and the Unicorn,
don't miss Isolde Martyn's next lush, passionate medieval romance…
THE KNIGHT AND THE ROSE
When Lady Johanna FitzHenry decides to leave her unbearably cruel husband, her mother offers the perfect solution: tell everyone she was already married. The only problem? Finding a likely hero to play the first husband. Fortunately, a handsome rebel knight with a dangerous secret is suddenly available—and willing to exchange some false vows for a false identity. Now, Johanna and her hireling husband must keep the truth from a world determined to destroy them—but it is the secrets they keep from each other that pose the greatest threat…
Coming from Bantam Books in spring 2000
The Maiden and the Unicorn Page 46