“My Lord, I know I have you to thank for my freedom now. I am grateful not to die here…” A dry, hoarse cough racked his thin body and sent him gasping for breath.
When the fit finally subsided, Richard said, “The York climate may prove too harsh for your health. I shall request you be returned to your duties at Westminster, my gracious cousin, if that is agreeable to you.” He turned his reluctant gaze on the bony face. George Neville fell to his knees and pressed Richard’s hand to his lips. “May you be rewarded for your Christian charity, my Lord Richard!” he sobbed. Gently, Richard had raised the feeble old man to his feet.
As he approached the walls of York, Richard forced the memories away and concentrated on his surroundings. Crimson and gold adorned the trees this fine September morning, and the sunlight was so bright it made his eyes ache. Children came running to view the procession, laughing, their hounds at their heels. Men left their ploughs to wave and cheer. Maidens appeared, curtseying, smiling, flinging flowers from aprons full of wildflowers.
Soon he would be home in Middleham with Anne and Ned. Home… Far from France, and far from court.
~*^*~
Chapter 5
“Fair and dear cousin, you that had most cause
To fear me, fear no longer. I am changed.”
At Middleham Anne stood at the foot of the grand staircase of the Keep, awaiting Richard’s arrival as a duchess should, quiet and dignified. But at the first blow of Gloucester Herald’s horn, she was unable to restrain herself. She grabbed Ned from Nurse Idley, ran through the arched stone gateway, over the drawbridge, and down the hilly path, hair flying, the babe in her arms. Richard flung himself from his saddle and, amidst the smiles of his retinue, swept them to him.
Later, Anne listened as Richard vented his anger at King Louis, at the treaty, and at Edward’s councillors, nodding her head in agreement; but in her heart she was glad there had been no war. For the first time in her life, a softness crept into her thoughts of Edward. Honour was all very well, but as Edward himself had pointed out, he’d returned men to their families alive, with limbs intact. Was that not enough?
The following month of October passed happily. They celebrated Richard’s twenty-third birthday and watched eighteen-month-old Ned take his first sure steps. All Hallow’s Eve was a special treat. Ned was now old enough to delight in the bonfires and revelry, and his pleasure only heightened theirs, but on All Saint’s Day they had to kiss him goodbye. Much as Richard and Anne hated the court that swarmed with intrigue and Woodvilles, they were leaving for Westminster. Her mother by marriage, Marguerite d’Anjou, the once-fearsome French Queen of Henry VI, had been ransomed by Louis and would soon leave England. Anne wished to bid her farewell.
Even the sun loathes to shine on London, Anne thought as her palfrey stepped daintily through London’s streets. Not only were the streets gloomy, but narrow. Narrow streets that ran between narrow houses and reduced the sky to narrow strips. London suffocated her. They passed the Mews where the king’s falcons were kept. The clock in the tower chimed the hour of six, and the dying sun cast a rosy glow over the white castellated walls and towers of Westminster. The gilded barges on the river glittered, but the beauty was fouled by the air, which was putrid with the odour of fish and horse droppings, and rife with shrill cries, shouted orders, whirling wheels, and horses’ hoofs. Anne cringed. She had barely arrived and already she craved the freshness of the moors and the solitude of the North. And her babe—how she missed him! She also wished Ned could have come with them, but he was delicate and they dared not take him far from Middleham.
Ned is curling up in nurse’s arms about now, she thought wistfully, to be sung a lullaby before bed. She glanced at Richard riding solemnly beside her. He’d been against this trip. He said she owed Marguerite nothing, not even a farewell. He was wrong. Marguerite had once been kin. And there was another reason why she had to come, one she couldn’t admit to Richard. Though her first husband, Edouard, had hated her at first, and though he’d always pretended it in front of his mother, he had shown her kindness at the end. It was Edouard who had consoled her in her grief after Barnet and the death of her father and beloved uncle John. Holding her gently as she wept, he had dried her tears and sworn to protect her. Sometimes in the dark of night she heard his voice: Fear not, fair wife, for I have come to love you. If Lancaster triumphs, you shall be my queen, and I shall be proud for it. Bidding Marguerite farewell might not mend anything, but it was a gesture Anne felt compelled to make. For Edouard’s sake.
The November morning blew in with rain and wind.
“Are you certain you wish to do this, my dearest?” asked Richard as they stood together on the windy wall-walk that led to the Wakefield Tower—the same tower where Henry VI had been murdered on Edward’s orders. “It’s not too late to turn back.”
Anne shook her head.
Reluctantly, Richard let her go. He watched as she approached the entrance of the privy chamber where Marguerite waited for Louis’s envoy to take her to back to France that afternoon. He wondered if Marguerite knew that her husband had died in that very room, and if she did, whether she also knew that Edward had purposely lodged her there as final revenge for her murder of their father. He saw Anne reach the iron-hinged door and pause, as if she was reconsidering. He almost called out to draw her back, but restrained himself. This was her choice. He hoped it was not a mistake to let her go.
As Anne walked stiffly toward the door where Marguerite d’Anjou waited, six years slid away and she was a girl in a borrowed blue satin gown whose heart was breaking with hopelessness and despair. Behind that closed door waited a woman in black velvet and a prince with a contemptuous smile. She saw the girl and the prince in the Cathedral of Angers. Hand in hand they knelt, the girl and the prince, while the Bishop of Bayeux concluded the Wedding Mass, spread his bejewelled hands and said, “Benedicite…”
A man-at-arms thrust open the door.
Anne stared at the silent figure before her. The dark hair was grey now; the head once held so proudly high drooped on her chest. Hollow and drained, Marguerite d’Anjou sat in a simple wood chair. Just so had she sat in Cerne Abbey.
Anne approached.
Just so had Marguerite sat as Sir William Stanley strode into the nave with long steps, the heels of his boots clicking loudly on the cold stone floor. He had not knelt, but stood as he gave Marguerite the news of her son’s death, a smile on his lips. Anne had taken in his gloating expression but she had not shared in his triumph. There was only sadness in her for Edouard, dead at seventeen, and for all the lives that had been sacrificed, and something akin to pity for the old woman in the chair at Cerne Abbey.
For old she had become, Marguerite. Bent and stooped and frail, all in the flash of a moment. Anne had reminded herself that this woman she pitied was the same one who had hated her, abased her, who had driven her father to his death and might have taken her life had the outcome of Tewkesbury been different, whatever Edouard had promised. For in Marguerite hatred had been a vital life force, surging and pounding in her veins and bursting forth in fury against the world when it could no longer be contained. Marguerite had hated her as she’d hated all her enemies: with all the seething vehemence of her soul. Yet, try as Anne might, she could not return Marguerite’s hatred. Hatred demanded energy, something she didn’t have. Was she a fool? An anomaly? She’d never had the passions others had, never wanted what others wanted. All she’d ever wanted was love. All they’d wanted was power. Why was she so different? And what difference did it make in the end? For the one who’d wanted power and the one who’d wanted love both found themselves together in a cold abbey, their lives shattered, in a world forever changed.
Anne shook herself out of the past and gazed at the woman who sat before her in the simple wood chair. Aye, those had been her thoughts then, but the truth had eluded her at sixteen. The path we choose does make a difference. Poor Marguerite. She had found hate, and hate had found her. Anne forced the
memories away and quickened her pace towards the woman in the chair. On the table near Marguerite a document lay open, the black ink still wet. She angled her head and read:
I, Marguerite, formerly in England married, renounce all…
to Edward, now King of England.
A small, battered wood coffer stood in the corner. All Marguerite’s possessions, in one small coffer. As a girl of fifteen, she had come to England with nothing, and now, thirty years later, she was leaving with nothing. Her father, Rene of Anjou, had sold his kingdom to Louis to raise the fifty thousand crowns for her ransom. In France, Marguerite would have nothing either. Anne knelt and put her arm gently around the former Queen. “You are free now, Marguerite,” she whispered softly. “You shall go home.” Marguerite’s head fell against her shoulder and all Anne could think of as she cradled the old grey head was how strange life could be; how unpredictable, and how cruel. Then Marguerite lifted her head and turned her dead eyes upon her. “You have a son,” she said.
Anne smiled, “Aye.”
“So had I once,” Marguerite replied.
Anne rose, shivering with sudden cold, and fled the chamber.
Richard never learned what passed between Marguerite and Anne, for Anne never told him. All he knew was that the meeting had been disastrous. When Anne had left Marguerite, she was trembling uncontrollably. Convinced that some ill had befallen Ned, she had clutched him fiercely and refused to let him go until he promised to send to Middleham for news. That night she had come down with fever. For a week at the Palace of Westminster she lay in bed, plagued by her old childhood nightmares—terrible imaginings about gargoyles and broken glass. Richard knew he’d been right. No good ever came from visiting the past.
~*^*~
Chapter 6
“…black, with black banner, and a long black horn.”
Christmas of 1475 was a happy one at Middleham, even though the New Year blew in with a fierce blizzard burying the north in snow. Oblivious to the howling winds that strained against their windows, Richard and Anne frolicked with their little Ned, secure in their joy.
Richard was relieved that his presence had not been required at court in months. His life in Middleham had acquired a regularity that agreed with his character. He had never liked change; had always found it threatening. For too long change had meant death, distress, upheaval. In the familiar daily routine that marked his life in these days, there was security and comfort, for he knew what to expect, as with a well-beloved melody. He devoted himself to his family, his estates, the Marches, and to the administration of justice for the people of the North, and felt himself complete as husband, father, son-in-law, and overlord.
As spring worked its magic over the land, he took Anne to York on his council business. Then, in early June, came a festive event that brought the entire Gloucester household to the city of York: the pageant of Corpus Christi. The only disappointment was that Anne’s uncle could not attend. His health was too delicate for the journey, Archbishop Neville wrote from London, promising to come before long.
A lavender and rose dawn streaked the sky as wagons gathered on Toft Green and began their descent, winding through the streets and pausing to enact biblical scenes along the way. Shipwrights, fishmongers, and mariners performed the tales of Noah; goldsmiths, the three kings from the east; and vintners, the miracles at Cana. It was a great spectacle, involving at least fifty guilds and many hundreds of performers. Ned loved it, clapping his hands and shrieking with delight.
Exhausted but happy, Richard and Anne returned to Middleham the following afternoon. They were greeted with the news that a messenger had arrived early that morning from London and awaited with urgent tidings. They hurried into the great hall. “My Lord,” said the messenger, a monk, “the Lord Archbishop Neville is dying.” Anne and her mother embraced tearfully.
Archbishop Neville did come again, as he had promised, but not as anyone would have wished. He came to be interred in the crypt at Yorkminster.
Middleham soon healed the grief of his passing, for at Middleham there was little Ned to spread laughter through the castle. But three months later, only a week after Richard’s twenty-fourth birthday, while he was away at York attending a meeting of the Council of the North, a messenger arrived from Northumberland. Anne was on her knees, singing to Ned in the nursery, when her mother came in, her face etched with sorrow. Anne ceased her song. She handed Ned to Nurse Idley and rose. “John’s Isobel is dying,” said the Countess. “We must go to her.” Anne felt the sting of tears.
Anne and the Countess reached Bisham before Isobel’s second husband, William Norris, had returned from the south, where he had journeyed on business. In the abbey where Nevilles had been buried for centuries, where John lay with his father Salisbury, and his brothers Warwick and Thomas, and where Isobel had come to be with John, they found her drifting in and out of consciousness. The physician informed Anne and the Countess that her illness was due to a failing heart. At thirty-five, she was not yet old, the physician said, and could even recover, if she put her mind to it, but she seemed to have lost the will to live.
With her chestnut hair splashed across the pillow, Isobel seemed strangely young and innocent, and Anne had been moved to deepest pity as she gazed on the still-lovely face. Isobel had asked Anne to take her ten-year-old son, George, to be raised as a Neville, which Anne readily agreed to do; but her last words had made no sense. They were directed to John, whom Isobel thought was standing at the door. Isobel had given a little laugh and said to the door, “I keep telling you, my Lord, angels have golden hair, not chestnut… Oh my love, I come…” and the brilliant smile that illuminated her face froze on her lips.
They had wept, the Countess and Anne. Later, as they rode home, Anne pondered Isobel’s last words. “Might she have seen uncle John?” Anne asked her mother, who knew much of death. The Countess shook her head. “Such dying visions, though not uncommon, are merely imaginings brought on by fever.” Anne found herself disappointed. She wanted to believe that John had truly returned for his precious Isobel.
More ill tidings followed on the heels of Isobel’s death, unleashing a load of sorrows almost too great to bear. On Christmas day, in the midst of revelry, soon after John’s young son, eleven-year-old George Neville, came to live with them, a black-clad messenger arrived from Warwick Castle, where Anne’s sister, Bella, lived with her husband, Richard’s brother, George. The minstrels hushed their song. The Countess rose to her feet unsteadily, ashen pale, trembling. Anne reached for her mother’s hand.
He bowed stiffly. “Your Grace… my Lady… I am the bearer of grievous tidings. Her Grace, Isabelle, Duchess of Clarence, died three days ago giving birth to a son.”
The Countess swooned. She was carried out of the hall, followed by a sobbing Anne and a sombre Richard. That very day a black pennant went up over the castle and the greenery that decorated the windows was covered with mourning cloth. As church bells tolled ceaselessly telling of death, Richard and his little family kept prayerful vigil at the chapel.
Soon another missive arrived. The babe, too, had died, passing from this world on Christmas day. Grief ushered in the New Year of 1477.
At Warwick Castle, fury exploded in George, Duke of Clarence, with the thunderous violence of a tempest at sea. His entire body trembling, he poured himself another goblet of malmsey and slammed down the emptied flask. Damn you, Edward. The Fiend take your foul soul! He downed a gulp of the strong, sweet wine and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. All his life his elder brother Edward had lorded it over him, telling him what to do, where to go, what to think! All his life his vile brother had pushed him around, laughed at him, and belittled his accomplishments. He wouldn’t take it anymore!
He grabbed the empty flask and flung it against the wall. His accursed, stinking brother had forgotten that he owed his throne to him! But for his defection from Warwick at Barnet, Edward would never have won the battle. Now, to return the favour, to secure him a crown, all the un
grateful knave had to do to was grant him permission to ask for Mary of Burgundy’s hand. And that he had refused.
Refused!
Reaching for a full flask, George knocked his goblet down, splashing red wine over the table. He put the flask to his mouth and gulped, spilling more than he swallowed. How dare Edward deny him—a prince of the blood royal—and put forward Anthony, that low-born churl, brother to the Woodville whore whom Edward called his Queen! He hurled the empty flask at a man-servant quivering in the corner of the chamber. “Wine!” he roared, rage boiling his blood. “Can’t you see it’s empty, you stupid bastard?” Bastard. That’s what Edward was! He called himself King but the truth remained: Edward was a bastard, the son of an archer. He had no damn right to the throne. He, George, was rightful King of England.
The man-servant scrambled back with the pain-killing Spanish wine George loved. He upended the new flask and drank greedily. That was why Edward hated him, why he had humiliated him before all the world, why he kept trying to poison him! The only reason he was still alive was because he was too clever for Edward. When he went to court, he took his own cook and brought his own food.
He slammed the flask on the table and dropped his head into his hands. Poor Bella. She hadn’t fared as well. If only she had listened to him! Instead, she’d trusted that midwife sent by the Woodville witch while he was away, a mistake that cost her life. A searing anguish tore his gut and he laid his face flat on the table in the cold wine. Sobs swelled in his throat and convulsed his body. Bella had died, and soon afterward, his infant son had joined her. Murdered by Edward and his sorceress Queen!
He sat up abruptly, eyes blazing. God’s Blood, they weren’t going to get away with it. He’d make them pay—the midwife who’d tended Bella and the doctor who’d poisoned his newborn son! He pushed himself to his feet. Swaying unsteadily, he crashed a fist down on the table. “Summon my captains!” he roared. “We’re going to hang those murderers Twynho and Thuresby! By God and all His saints in Heaven, those whoresons are going to pay!”
The Rose of York: Crown of Destiny Page 4