“A soldier in the king’s personal guard?” Fitzwalter frowned. “Now that the king is in no position to protect him, I suggest that you find him quickly and ascertain with certainty if she gave him the letter. I should not have to tell you that our support of this haughty earl is only a pretense to destabilize the throne until Queen Margaret and the prince are able to invade. We are closer than most people realize, but our success could hinge on finding that letter. Do you understand that?”
“You needn’t fear, my lord. I will find the cur, as God is my witness.” And when I have what we seek, I’ll dispose of you and your bothersome daughter.
*
Kate walked through the dingy halls of Colinsworth Castle escorted by a serving man. She needed to know who was behind these outrages visited upon herself and the Millers, but she was afraid of what the truth would reveal. She would never be able to forgive herself if Sally were harmed on her account. The abduction from York and hellish journey through the country was nightmare enough for a lifetime, and of course Sir Hugh had told them nothing, preferring instead to enjoy their terror.
Once they had reached this dreary castle, they were pushed into a small room somewhere within the rampart wall, where only a small slit for a window allowed any light.
As she was escorted into the central courtyard, she shielded her eyes against the light. There was little activity in this place that, in a typical castle, would be a center for the daily business. Here there was only a single kitchenhand plucking a chicken, and on the allure above the gate a single guard watching them as they walked toward the main keep.
“In here,” her escort ordered as he opened the doors leading into the great hall. She stepped into the shadowy hall lit only by the high window openings and saw a dark shape of a man standing by the end of the dining table. Her escort pushed her toward the table. The man stepped into a shaft of light. Her fear dissolved into anger.
“You!” She strode quickly to him and struck him sharply across his cheek. “I should have known you were behind this outrage.” Lord Colinsworth smiled thinly.
“I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see you again, Katherine, my love.”
“You do not have my leave to call me that.”
“Ah, but I think that you’ll find you have very few rights any more, my love. You see, you are nothing but a common serving girl.” Taking her arm, he pulled her roughly to him so that his face was inches from hers. “Such wenches do not have rights, and so I will take what liberties I wish.”
“Let me go!” she said, trying to loosen his grip. He released her abruptly so that she fell back into a chair, then took his seat at the head of the table.
“You see all that’s left to me here in this room, don’t you, my dear? I have paid dearly for my father’s allegiance to the House of Lancaster.” His family had always obeyed the dictates of their oath to the Lancastrian king, as should have been the sworn duty of all men, but the politics of the time had made that a deadly crime, and now he was lucky to be in possession of his life and this pitiful castle. The look in Kate’s eyes repulsed him. “I prefer your hatred to pity, my love,” he said bitterly. “After all, you bear no small responsibility for my present state.”
“Choices are not always easy to make.”
Her response left him feeling empty, like the day she turned from him so many years ago and fled from his life.
“I could have loved you once, Roger, but you left me no choice.”
Colinsworth looked at her longingly for a moment before the cloud descended once again.
“I want the letter, Kate. Tell me where it is.”
“You already know that I would not give it to you if it were my last mortal act.”
“That act may be a great deal sooner than you think, my dear. I will not live in this pisshole of a castle any longer. As soon as I get my response from your father, we will talk again, and make no mistake, I will have my reward. Take her back!” The sentry took her by the arm and shoved her roughly toward the door.
“You already have your reward, Roger,” she shouted.
Once again she was led through the dreary walkways and halls of Colinsworth Castle. But the return trip seemed different, for instead of fear of the unknown, she felt anger and guilt. Anger at the men who, by putting their own interests above the truth, had made so many innocents suffer needlessly, and guilt about the poor young woman in her cell who had been drawn into the maelstrom with her.
She was shoved back in her cell and sprawled off balance until she hit the cold stone floor with a thud.
“Kate! Are you all right?” Sally helped her to her feet.
“As well as I can be in such a place as this,” she said. “It’s time I was completely honest with you, Sally. I owe you that and much more. Please, let me tell you my story and try not to judge me too severely. You must know that I’d rather die than be the cause of any harm coming to you or your family. If I had known they might find me, I would never have let Samuel get close to me.”
“Find you? Who?”
“I am not what I pretend to be, though I wish to God I were. My father is Lord Fitzwalter, a loyal supporter of the House of Lancaster, and one of King Henry’s most trusted advisers. We spent much of my youth at court.” She became wistful, remembering those comfortable days. “My mother died when I was very young, and my father enjoyed having me with him, tolerating all kinds of selfish behavior from me. I am ashamed to remember what I was like. I think I was simply insufferable, but my father could not bring himself to correct me. It was only the kind act of a young girl who risked her life to save mine that shamed me into becoming a wiser person.” It took a moment before she could continue. “When I came of age, I became a lady-in-waiting to Queen Margaret. I found that things were not well at court. The king suffered from bouts of insanity, and the absence of a king’s strong hand gave rise to much disorder. I saw it grow worse every day, and the hatred between Queen Margaret and the Duke of York was at the heart of every evil deed. It was clear that if Margaret did not bear Henry a son, the Yorkists would inherit the throne, a fate the queen would have sold her soul to avoid. And perhaps she did.”
“You see, Henry was impotent, or at least unwilling. Even when he was of his right mind, he refused to visit her bedchamber. Perhaps it was not always so, but certainly he never went to her in those days that I was lady-in-waiting, and I knew her anguish.”
“These days the queen only consults French priests in spiritual matters. She is deeply devout, you know. But at that time she had an English confessor, Father Stephen, whom she trusted implicitly, and it was to him that she confessed the great sin she had committed, a sin even her ladies-in-waiting did not know. She confessed to Father Stephen that in her desperation to bear an heir for the House of Lancaster, she had bedded the Duke of Somerset, father to he who was recently beheaded at Hexham, and it was by that duke, a cousin to King Henry, that the Prince of Wales was fathered.”
Sally was incredulous. “If that’s true, there is no heir to the House of Lancaster.”
“An even greater folly was to follow. She gave a letter to Father Stephen to deliver to Somerset in which she asked him for military assistance against the Duke of York, for the sake of the son they had conceived together.” Kate paused to let the significance of her words sink in, and wrung her hands. “By telling you, I may have jeopardized your life, but I don’t see how your knowing can make matters any worse than they already are.”
“How did you come to know of the truth?” Sally was dazed.
“Father Stephen could not tolerate the thought of a bastard on the English throne. I assume he felt divulging the contents of the letter was a way of getting the truth out, while not breaking the seal of the confessional. He intended to hand it over to the Bishop of Bath, one of King Henry’s closest advisors. But he chose poorly, beca
use the bishop is an ambitious man. When he heard of the letter, the bishop knew if he were to expose Father Stephen’s actions to the queen, the rewards would be great. The bishop’s manner made the priest suspicious and he insisted on presenting the letter to the king directly, upon which the bishop called for the guards. Father Stephen fled.” Kate paused as the memory became more painful. She remembered the events as if they had just happened. She told Sally how Father Stephen had come to her room and left his burden with her. “He was captured in another part of the palace and was tortured for days before he died, but they were never able to rip from him the location of the letter. He sacrificed his life to protect me.” Tears welled in her eyes. “Of course, there was no way for me to get the letter to the king. He was bereft of his wits, and isolated from everyone by the queen’s command. I left the palace as soon as I had a good excuse and went directly to my father, whom I had always known to be a loyal supporter of the king. But when I told him of the letter, to my surprise, he berated me for even considering turning it over to the king, insisting that it would be the end of the House of Lancaster and demanding that I give it to him to destroy. But how could I have done that, knowing as I did the way Father Stephen had been made to suffer in his final hours? Instead of revealing where I had concealed the letter, I had a horse saddled and fled his house, to the only other men I thought would help, Lord Colinsworth and his son, Roger, whom my father had contracted me to marry.”
“I admired Lord Colinsworth and knew him to be an honorable man, and Roger was kind enough when we were introduced. But when I arrived, desperate for help, Lord Colinsworth was off on one of the queen’s campaigns. Roger allowed me to stay with him. Finally, I told him of the letter. He agreed to help, and offered to let me stay as long as I needed, but I did not truly know Roger. The next day, as I was walking in the courtyard, I overheard him tell a stablehand to dispatch a rider to my father. I fled in the guise of a serving girl and left my life as Lord Fitzwalter’s daughter behind me. I wandered north away from those who knew me, taking charity to survive until the Bishop of Durham gave me a job in his kitchen.”
“How difficult it must have been for you all these years.” Kate smiled thinly at her gentle cellmate.
“Being a serving girl instead of Lord Fitzwalter’s daughter was much easier than I had expected, though I should never have worked for the Bishop of Durham since it was inevitable that someone would recognize me sooner or later. But I fell in love. It was foolish of me to think that I could start a new life with your family, but you were all so kind, and I thought that I could live that life and forget the past. Instead I brought this fate upon you.”
“You have no cause to feel that way,” Sally brushed Kate’s thick brown hair from her face. “Samuel’s love for you makes you one of us, and the burden that you carry is our burden as well. I am glad to share this pain with you.”
Tears ran down Kate’s cheeks as she embraced the woman she prayed would one day be her sister. The weight that had tugged at her soul was lighter for the first time in years.
Sally did not ask where the letter was. She knew that was a cross Kate would have to bear alone.
“Tell me of the young girl who saved your life.”
Kate smiled. “It was the Lady Elizabeth Woodville, she who is now our queen.”
*
The Tower of London was the great fortress built by William the Conqueror on the shores of the River Thames in London four hundred years before Edward became king. Many additions had been made, but the imposing square keep that the Normans built for William, called the White Tower, was still its most striking feature. Surrounded by two more or less concentric walls, it contained the royal apartments that every monarch since William had used as a secure stronghold within the city.
Prisoners were brought into the fortress through the Traitor’s Gate, which opened to the river, away from the curious eyes of the public. Behind the Traitor’s Gate, within the inner wall, stood the Wakefield Tower, a round keep with no openings except for the heavy wooden doors leading to the lower chamber, and a single set of long, narrow windows that looked out from the upper chamber. It was the first imposing structure seen by incoming prisoners. Added by previous monarchs as part of the royal quarters, it had been converted to a secure prison for wayward nobility some two hundred years past.
The upper chamber of the Wakefield Tower was a high vaulted room with eight stone ribs supporting the ceiling. Along the walls were alcoves for three doors, the windows, a fireplace, a sleeping area, and a small chapel. One of the doors hid the spiral steps leading to the lower chamber, and the other two doors led to the opposite sides of the allure atop the inner wall. All were securely locked.
The dim light revealed a man lying on a pallet of rotting wood. His tattered clothes disguised the fact that this was Henry VI, once king of England and France.
The days had passed anonymously since his imprisonment. But he knew where he was, and who he was. A tin bowl of uneaten slop and a stale hunk of bread rested by one of the heavy wooden doors that separated his kingdom from the world outside.
Henry noticed something in the room and rubbed his eyes to clear his vision. A mist had formed into a shimmering shape. He could see a man coalescing within his cell, silvery at first, then gaining definition. Henry propped himself on one elbow and stared at a young man with fair hair and gentle countenance, wearing a white tunic with the Falcon-and-Fetterlock crest emblazoned on the chest, with white leggings and bare feet.
“Do you know me?” the vision asked in a voice as soft as silk.
“I know the crest you wear is that of the House of York,” answered Henry, still trying to focus.
“I am Edmund, Earl of Rutland.”
“I was told you were dead.” He pondered the problem for a moment, then shrugged his scrawny shoulders. “No matter. Have you come to execute your brother’s awful justice on my person? I wish you would, as I have suffered this wretched place too long, and have heard the king is a just man.”
“I have not come on my brother’s behalf.”
“A pity.” Henry said. “Then I wish you would leave me in peace.”
“Sit up and look on me, great king. I have come to give you strength.” Henry struggled to sit up, not certain why he felt compelled to comply.
“Why would the brother of York wish to give me strength? Are we not enemies?”
“You have already seen that you will rule the land again. You must prepare yourself.”
“I was hoping that vision was flawed, or that its true meaning was hidden from me. I have no wish to rule again. Please, I am content with my condition.”
“Your fate is sealed, and my brother will come for you when the struggle is done and the night is cold. But before then, there is still one who will need you, and you must be strong.”
“I can do nothing for you.” Henry stretched his tired back and yawned. “Seek out your brother who sits upon my throne.”
“Within each of us dwells the power to achieve our dreams, if they are worthy of achievement. I am only here to remind you of that which you are already aware. The day will come when our houses are united, and these struggles will occupy meaningless pages of history. But you will be remembered fondly by your people, and what better legacy could you hope to leave?”
“You have chosen to be my enemy.” Henry waved his hand as if to dismiss him.
“I was never your enemy, great king. I only followed the path that I considered to be God’s will, and only at the final judgment will we know the nature of truth. Before that day, we are all united only by our common fate.”
“I never asked to be king, but for that crime I am held in this wretched place. How can you speak of a common fate when your brother sits on my throne and you can go as you wish to feel the warmth of a summer breeze on your face and to walk in the forest when th
e flowers carpet the soil?”
“We are the same. You must never doubt that.” Slowly, Edmund lifted his tunic, exposing a deep gash below his sternum, the torn tissue within still oozing blood.
Henry looked for a moment at the awful wound, then squeezed his eyes closed and lay back on his bed.
“Will I suffer?” he asked softly.
The next day, the morning shift guard was surprised to see that the food in Henry’s cell had been consumed for the first time in many days.
CHAPTER XXII
“It joys me to see you again, my boy.”
Sir Julian clapped Samuel on the shoulder. Although he was not happy to be back among the guardsmen when Kate and Sally were still missing and in danger, his heart was glad to see his old mentor again. Indeed, the welcome he received from everyone in the small camp near Nottingham made him feel as if he had been away too long.
The journey south from Lincoln had been slow due to the deplorable condition of the roads. Samuel was accustomed to roads that were not maintained and horribly rutted, but early spring storms had taken an even harder toll this year, and his small party had frequently found themselves leading the horses through knee-deep mud. Nigel told them that most of the common folk were not inclined anymore to risk the lawless roads, frequented as they were by bands of cutthroats.
Use of the old Roman road that led north to York made the way easier, but even that marvel of ancient achievement, which had carried travelers for more than a thousand years, was now badly decayed. It had taken them a fortnight to make a journey of a few days, and they had arrived later than they had hoped.
When they arrived, they were relieved to hear that the earl’s party had not yet passed through the deep copse where they waited. Nigel’s informants had reported that a party of several hundred men were on their way, escorting the prisoner king from Warwick Castle to Middleham Castle, another of Warwick’s magnificent holdings in the northlands near Richmond. It appeared that the horrible condition of the roads had slowed their progress as well.
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