Silently, for they were well trained, the band of young men led their horses into the mouth of the salt mine, disappearing one by one into darkness like wraiths, leaving the king and his brother alone in the quiet green valley.
Richard smiled. ‘I look forward to meeting her, you know. Meeting this nameless girl. And I hope she’s worth it to you.’
Edward did not reply, but as he reached the lip of the fell once more and lay down — careful to make sure that his sword was covered by a fold of his cloak and that he’d removed his metal helm so that the sun should not find it and give away their position to the castle below them — he caught his brother’s eye.
‘I’m here, aren’t I? What does that tell you?’
Chapter Fifty-Eight
The inner ward of Middleham Castle was a roiling mass of horses and people as the earl’s party mounted for the hunt. Anne was the sole woman, surrounded by more than twenty of the earl’s closest affinity, with the addition of the Duke of Clarence.
What had promised to become a fair day was changing, the sun partly obscured by clouds — pretty clouds, many shades of grey and silver, but clouds nonetheless.
Anne was settling herself onto the back of a delicate mare — finely made and full of energy, dancing from foot to foot — as Warwick rode over.
‘Now, lady, I hope you will forgive me, but if the weather turns, we will abandon the hunt. The ground is already so wet that more rain will make our efforts pointless; the scent will be destroyed.’
Confidently Anne gathered up the reins of her mare in borrowed red leather gloves and smiled brightly. ‘But I am confident we’ll have good sport, Your Grace. The sun will return, you’ll see.’
The tremendous noise of baying dogs caught their attention as the earl’s pack of hounds streamed out from their kennels.
‘Well then, let us see what this day brings.’ Signalling the dogs to be whipped in, the earl led the party of horses out through the raised portcullis of the gate between the inner and outer wards, the dogs massed in a yelping, trotting pack ahead of them.
Now they were past the second gate leading on to the last obstacle, the great East Gate, and Anne held her breath, only daring to breathe again as she passed beneath the last and third raised portcullis, her horse clattering over the wooden bridge which spanned the moat, until, finally, they were out into the fields beyond the castle. There, in front of her horse’s hooves, lay freedom, the freedom of the green dales.
She still had her ruby, and the knife, and a good horse beneath her; there was hope. There was always hope.
‘Edward, do you ever wish things had turned out differently?’
Richard was lying on his back, gazing up at the sky. His brother glanced at him for a moment, distracted from scanning the plain below, the plain which lay before the castle.
Edward sighed. ‘We do what we do, what we were born to do, and there’s no help for it.’ Against his will, Richard nodded. Sometimes it felt as if he and his brother were caught in the toils of some great mill-working and the only way to escape being crushed was to control the mechanism which turned the mill wheel. The role of a king, to be the miller for his kingdom; perhaps there was comfort in that homely thought.
‘Look — there!’ Richard’s musings stopped abruptly; he flipped back on to his belly to see what his brother was pointing at.
Beneath them, there was movement around the East Gate of Middleham — a mounted party and a pack of dogs issuing forth. Distantly, very distantly, the belling of the hounds reached them on the damp, uncertain wind.
‘Hunting party — how does that help us?’ Richard was disappointed.
‘Look again, brother.’
Richard squinted, but his long sight was not as famously good as his brother’s. ‘What am I looking for?’ It was just a hunting party, a group of men.
‘Use your eyes, Richard! It’s not all men. There’s a woman amongst them. Yes!’ Now both made out the bright red of the hunting dress amongst the group of men in their darker, more sombre jackets and cloaks.
‘Anne.’ Edward breathed the word, eyes locked to that distant, red-clad little figure.
Richard looked at his brother. ‘Anne is her name?’ Edward nodded distractedly. ‘But you can’t know it’s the girl you seek. Could be anyone. Edward?’
But Edward was already slithering back down the bank of the hill ‘Edward?’ With a swallowed curse, Richard scrambled down after his brother — already hurrying towards the salt mine’s mouth; but Edward called back over this shoulder as he ran.
‘No! Stay there! Keep watch whilst I get the others; we need to know which way they go.’
‘Into the trees, into the forest, Your Grace!’ Anne had spotted the hounds as they took the scent and began to bell loudly as they ran. Deliberately she sank her heels into the mare’s flanks and the horse responded, leaping forward, leading the riders, ahead of the earl himself as Anne galloped for the densely packed trees at the meadow’s edge.
The earl, caught off guard, was furious. ‘Pursue, now!’ He meant pursue Anne, and Alan of Braydon caught his angry eye. He was ambitious, Alan, and didn’t want to betray the trust that the earl had placed in him. In all of them. Keep sight of the girl, guard the girl.
But if Anne’s mare was small, she was very nimble and willing — as if she sensed her rider’s passionate desire for freedom, and shared it — and Anne was so much lighter than the men. Soon she had well outstripped the others on their heavier horses, riding alone by a length, two lengths, three lengths, racing on as clouds slid over the sun and the day darkened.
‘Hah!’ Alan had spurs — vicious, bright slashers with barbed wheels — he used them mercilessly and his gelding surged forward. A big horse, the gelding, plenty of heart, and soon he was out from the pack of hunters by a neck, by a length, gaining on the girl, gaining on the hounds as the other riders, screamed at by the earl, charged on hard, neck or nothing.
‘First to find, wins a crown!’ The earl’s words slid on the wind — prophetic did he but know it — but many of the men around him heard, and it was enough, more than enough because their blood was up. Two quarries today, it seemed: the stag and the girl. Up ahead, the red dress flashed between the trees, deeper and deeper in the forest amongst the dark trunks as Alan’s gelding gained even more pace on the fleeing girl.
‘Into the forest, they’ve gone into the forest!’
Richard, catching up, yelled to his brother as the king let Mallon find his own way down the hillside path, sure-footed as a goat, the men scrambling after him, the horses spooked and sliding on the wet ground.
‘We’ll run to the west, come in to the trees from that side: we’ll surprise them.’
Gallant optimism; there was no telling where the Middleham party would be by the time Edward’s men came to the forest, they were losing precious time in the treacherous terrain.
‘Where is she?’ The earl hauled his horse up very short, bellowing; searching for the girl as he scanned the trees, willing himself to see that flash of red. He spurred his horse as he wheeled it, urging the animal on with his whip, his heels.
‘Don’t think much of your hounds, cousin — don’t seem to have put up the stag yet for all the noise.’ Clarence was suddenly racing beside him. ‘Anne’s outridden us all, come on!’ And the young man forced his horse past the earl as he galloped in the direction of the belling hounds.
Clarence was a fool, young and stupid, and if he weren’t so valuable as a piece on the board it would have given the earl much, much pleasure to scream out what he really thought behind the retreating royal back. He wasn’t even bright enough to understand that Anne was now the object of the hunt.
But Alan of Braydon hadn’t lost Anne. He’d settled into wary but hot pursuit: dodging the trees, ducking the branches, keeping his horse close reined.
There she was! Red, blood red, amongst the stark black trees. Clever girl, she was running away from the hounds but not fast enough, not nearly fast enough.
>
The king’s party was galloping too, flat-galloping, across the meadow towards the west as the fence of trees came closer and closer. Shouts and halloos could be heard from the castle battlements behind them — they’d been spotted!
‘Go! Go!’ Edward urged his followers, ‘Find the girl, red dress!’
Behind them, the outer ward of the castle came alive as men rushed to arm and find horse. The pursuit would take minutes, cursed minutes, to organise, but it was worth their heads when the earl found out that armed strangers were on his land, in his own forest! Terror put salt on the tails of the garrison of Middleham Castle.
The little mare was courageous and she smelt the urgency, but she was close to the end of her reserves and Anne knew it. The man behind her was crashing nearer and nearer on his bigger, stronger horse, but there, up ahead was a forest ride, a long straight swathe of grass cut through the heart of the trees. A pleasure ride. At least the little horse could run flat, not use energy dodging trees.
‘Come up, up!’ Anne screamed the words and the mare responded, one last gallant time. Together girl and horse flew from the protecting trees into the ride, faster and faster.
Alan could not believe his luck; only desperation could make her think she could outrun his gelding on open ground. Again he slashed the spurs to the blood-running sides of his horse as he too broke cover from the trees.
The earl saw Alan head for the ride as he came hard up behind him; he’d sent some of his men off with Clarence, riding in hot pursuit of the hounds in an entirely different direction.
Warwick swerved out of the trees, into the ride. Ahead was the fleeing girl, the skirt of his daughter’s long red dress flying like a banner, like a flag, but Alan was gaining, gaining, three lengths back, two ...
‘To me, to me!’ The earl yelled out to his men, elated as he gouged the sides of his destrier. He had her now, they would run her down — check!
‘Saint George! To me, to me!’ Mallon had a fighting heart, so too did Hautboys, and both horses answered the call — they’d been in too many battles, they knew what it meant. Bellowing, Mallon put his head down and charged into the ride as the mare and the girl in the red dress ran full-tilt towards them, pursued, closer and closer, by one lone rider with a pack of men behind him.
Then Anne saw the king and his men. Ye Gods!
At full gallop, swords were drawn and arrows knocked. ‘On my word — divide!’ Edward roared the command, his eyes locked to Anne’s, as his troop peeled into two neat halves, and the girl and her mare charged through their midst and out beyond.
Richard had one wild impression of flying hair and a glorious face, while his brother screamed another command, ‘And chaaaaaaaarge!’
Now the knights, white boar badge so plain on their chests, formed a dense wall around their king and his brother, spurring their horses faster, faster. A tournament with no tilt yard, no lance, just naked swords and bows ...
And the earl and his men were upon them, howling for blood, and the crash when they met, the screaming of the horses, was immense.
Anne pulled her mare to a shuddering stop, just yards beyond the fighting, and ripped the sharpened knife from its straps, terrified for the king. Though personal fear had left her and her heart beat like a hammer, the energy, the blind-red exhaltation of battle, was roaring, screaming at her, praying for her — let him live! Oh let him live, Mother of all Battles. The little mare was baying like a destrier too, head up, all exhaustion banished as she curvetted, Anne barely holding her.
It was brutal, swift and drenched with blood, Anne’s first exposure to men fighting to win. Alan, her pursuer, was down and trampled, neck sliced open to the spine, dreams of glory gone as the gelding, spooked by the gore, blundered riderless from the fray, running for its stable; and there, in the heart of the battle she could see Edward on his great horse, thigh to thigh with his brother as they swung their swords in wheels, in flashing arcs, swords which rang and rang again as they met those of the earl’s men pressed thick around them.
And in the centre of the howling mass, the blade-flashing fury, the earl was edging closer, ever closer to the king — now they were fighting, hand to hand, both off their horses as the fight formed and reformed around them.
Anne had a knife, only a knife, but she would use it, make it count. Standing in her stirrups, she took aim without thought and hurled the blade.
It ran true and straight, and found its mark — Earl Warwick’s sword arm — and that was enough. With a scream, Richard of Warwick dropped his blade and the king’s own sword was at his neck in a blur.
‘Hold. Now. Or the earl dies!’
Edward’s roar cut through the tumult; the moment was extraordinary. Frozen. The berserk fury on the king’s face spoke the truth. Haltingly, swords and men disengaged. The slithering sound of steel sliding from steel. It was very strange.
Richard, voice hoarse and harsh, bellowed, ‘Kneel. This is your king!’
Edward pressed the sword’s edge deeper into the earl’s throat, a thread of blood appearing. That scarlet line did its work. One by one, the earl’s men dropped their swords as they knelt.
‘Geoffrey, Walter — disarm them!’
Minutes later, as the men of Middleham’s garrison burst out into the forest ride, they saw an odd sight and, at a signal from their captain, reigned in their horses, confused and fearful.
Riderless horses careered past as the earl, their master, rode one-handed towards them at a sedate pace; he was wounded in his sword arm and the blood could be seen dripping from the unstaunched wound. Beside him was the king, accompanied by the Lady Anne, shocked and white, and Duke Richard, the king’s brother.
On foot, behind them, walked only some of their comrades from Middleham as, close behind, came a party of armed men, swords drawn, wearing ‘The White Boar’ of Gloucester on their chest, the archers amongst them with arrows knocking as they rode. And there were bodies further down the ride, dead men, men they knew.
The captain of the Middleham garrison was not a fool and he was not a coward. His first instinct was to form his men up and charge, but that was the king himself beside his master, and Duke Richard, the boy he’d once known as a page serving in the earl’s own great hall of the castle behind them.
‘Hold, Eamonn. There’s been a misunderstanding, just a misunderstanding. Lady Anne’s horse bolted.’ The earl still had his voice, though it was hoarse from shouting in the battle and had an iron edge. The words were hard to say, after all.
At that moment, preceded by an enthusiastic pack of hunting dogs, the Duke of Clarence and the earl’s remaining men issued forth from out of the forest. The duke, very proud, was leading a horse with a stag of a good size slung across the saddle bow.
‘Earl Warwick, just see,’ he paused, doubt and then horror. ‘Brother? And Richard.’
It was an awkward moment, worse than awkward, but Edward broke it calmly.
‘Yes, brother I am here. What a pleasant meeting! The earl was kind enough to invite us here to Middleham. Something was borrowed I believe, Earl Warwick? Property of the crown you wished to return?’
The earl remained quite impassive. ‘Perhaps it can be restored as we feast on the fine stag the duke has brought down for us, Your Majesty.’
Anne spoke up. ‘Alas, Earl Warwick, I fear that I have trespassed far too long on your hospitality. Now that the weather is fine (the first fat drops of rain made clear nonsense of her words), ‘I truly believe I must be on my way home. As I explained, Your Grace, those I love must be so worried by my continued absence.’
Edward smiled graciously. ‘Ah, Lady, truly it is not safe for you to travel without an escort through my kingdom, ashamed though I am to say it. It happens that my brother, Duke Richard, and I have pressing business in York which will not permit us to join Earl Warwick and our brother in their feast. We would be most pleased, therefore, to provide an escort for you; and then we can see you on your way further, should you wish it.’
&nbs
p; Her eyes met his, and it was a long look. And though she smiled, the sadness in her eyes broke Edward’s heart.
‘I should be glad of your escort to York, my lord king. As to where I may go after that time, those I love will help me find the road home, of this I am certain.’
Chapter Fifty-Nine
It was night, very late, and Edward’s room in York Castle was lit by candles and light from the fire.
‘Are you hungry, Anne?’
The king looked at the girl standing in the great oriel window of his private quarters in York Castle gazing out into the darkness, still dressed in the now-filthy red hunting habit. She had her back to him. Outside, the world was black and quiet, though wind nudged the cold glass of the window, sighing.
Anne shook her head though she did not turn to look at him. She could not speak, could not form the words.
‘I’m sorry we could not rest on our way home,’ he grimaced as he said the word. So did she, though he could not see it, ‘but it seemed best to be out of Warwick lands and away here as soon as possible; I hope the ride was not too much for you.’
He was trying to find the words to reach her, and all he could talk about was riding. ‘Would you like to wash, or sleep?’
Now Anne turned to face him and he could see the glimmer of tears in her eyes. On all the long, mad ride back to York through a wet day and most of a freezing night, they’d barely spoken, though he had tried every way he knew to get her to talk to him.
‘No, Your Majesty. I do not think I could sleep. If it were not so late I would ask to see my son.’
There was such a gulf between them. She did not know how to cross it and yet each ached to touch the other. He knew it and she knew it too.
‘Ah, sweet Anne,’ his voice broke and so did her resolution. All she could see was his face, all she could hear was his voice as he crossed the room towards her. ‘I thought you were dead.’ The words were wrenched from him.
The Exiled Page 39