As soon as they were out of the room Isabel rushed at her, blonde hair, not yet braided, flying across her face. ‘What did he want? What did he say to you?’ The women’s expressions asked the same, though etiquette would not let them speak. Anne shrank back on to her stool, her face closing. She had no inclination to tell Isabel what was happening, and she was sure that the Duke of Gloucester would not like it either. But Isabel was not taking silence as an answer. ‘Tell me, Anne. You must tell because I’m the elder and you’re only a child.’ The logic was irrefutable: never before had Anne failed to accord to her sister the rights due to her. Yet now there was a stronger claim on her obedience.
‘It’s a secret,’ she said.
Isabel was shocked. ‘You can’t have a secret from me. Specially when that boy John Wrangwysh knows it. He’s only a merchant’s son.’ That surprised Anne a little; she had assumed that John was, like herself and the other henchmen, from a noble family. In any case, she had only the vaguest idea what a merchant was, and she did not see that it made any difference to keeping or sharing secrets.
‘He’s my lord Duke’s friend.’
‘And I’m his cousin,’ countered Isabel. But though she felt wretchedly that she was being stupid and wicked, Anne would say no more. Disconcerted by this unexpected check to her curiosity, Isabel went away and had her hair brushed. While Anne was pushing her cold feet into fur-lined slippers she came back. Her smug expression was ominous. ‘If you won’t tell me, I shall ask his grace our cousin myself.’
‘No, no, you mustn’t!’ Her sister’s threat threw Anne into an agony of fear. The precious circle of confidence between her and the Duke and John would be broken irrevocably if Isabel were to join it. There was only one way she could think of to stave off the possibility. ‘Let me ask him.’
‘As soon as he’s back from the hunt?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you promise?’
‘Yes.’
‘Very well. But don’t forget.’
‘No.’ Satisfied, Isabel flounced off to finish dressing, leaving her sister shaken and apprehensive. She hated the idea of asking for anything, let alone from the Duke. Not that she stood in awe of him any more, but he was already doing her a favour and she wanted to be grateful, not to demand more.
Nevertheless, when the henchmen came in she was waiting in the great hall, out of sight of the trophies they brought back, which she did not like very much, but near enough to the spot where the Duke’s attendant was standing ready to take his master’s cloak and gauntlets. The lads were stamping around, breathing clouds of steam as if still out in the wintry air, calling to each other in the loud relaxed voices of men taking ease after a hard morning’s sport. As usual Gloucester did not join in the chatter, though several admiring remarks on his prowess were thrown his way and quietly acknowledged. He allowed his man to divest him of his outdoor garments, running his hand over his hair to smooth it as the hood was removed. By the time Anne had summoned the courage to approach him, he was fastening the buttons on a long woollen houppelande. Yet when she stood before him and his sober gaze was on her, she could not say a word. Reaching the bottom button, he regarded her a moment longer, then said as if in answer to a question, ‘John has a good piece of wood. We’re free this afternoon so he can start then.’
‘Thank you,’ Anne whispered, and continued to stare up at him beseechingly, wishing he could read her thoughts.
At length he asked, ‘Is something wrong?’
‘Yes... no... Isabel wants to know,’ she said in a rush.
‘Oh. Is that all?’ Anne nodded, looking at the floor. ‘She can watch if she likes. John won’t mind.’ He left his small cousin trembling with relief. Somehow, by the easy way in which he had let Isabel into their conspiracy, he had kept it intact. Isabel, however, was not over-grateful for the privilege Anne had won her.
‘He says you can watch.’
‘Watch what?’
Anne would presume no further than the Duke had conceded.
‘This afternoon, he said.’
‘Watch what?’ No answer. ‘Anne, you are silly. And you must call my lord Duke “his grace”.’
‘Yes. His grace said you could watch this afternoon. John won’t mind.’ And she ran away before her sister could pester her further.
It was unusual for the children to be given an afternoon off. Their régime was very strict, accounting for each hour of the day from rising to bedtime. When the trestle tables had been dismantled they gathered in the great hall, where there was a fire. Though the heat from the burning logs did not spread nearly as far as the smoke, it made a cheerful core to the big chamber. Tired from their morning exercise, the hounds nosed half-heartedly through the rushes in search of scraps, then turned round several times, curled up and went to sleep. Most of the boys, uncertain what to do with their leisure, did much the same, wandering about aimlessly before settling down for a lazy afternoon. The Duke, however, took charge of Anne and her sister, and wasted no time in setting up their entertainment. Squatting by the fire, John was prepared; his lump of wood was already cut into a rough pearshape, and with the three other children ranged round him in a semicircle he began his demonstration.
Nobody said anything, although Isabel was only restrained by manners from asking what John was making. Anne was fascinated by every sliver of wood which flew from his dagger, warmed by the knowledge that it was all for her benefit. In her opinion no real baby could have been more beautiful than the poppet emerging from the block of elm wood.
It was nearly completed when out of the tail of her eye she caught a movement by the entrance. Three people were standing inside the leather curtain: Master Barton the chamberlain and two strangers well wrapped in furs. One was a girl in a widow’s cap; the appearance of the other immediately drove Anne to take refuge behind her sister. He was a big man, and she knew at once that he was just the type of person who most frightened her; confident, assertive, like her father and King Edward, raking the hall with keen eyes which she hoped might miss her, but was sure would not. The apparition had an unexpected effect on John. Roused from his concentration by Anne’s retreat, he sprang to his feet with a yelp and flung himself at the girl, who hugged him joyfully. Then the big man cuffed him, which John did not seem to mind at all. Peeping at them from behind Isabel’s back, Anne wondered at their strange behaviour.
John led the newcomers over to the fire, and she was forced to emerge and face them. This was John’s father - the girl was his sister Janet - and Anne remembered what Isabel had said about John being only a merchant’s son; she did not look quite so superior now. For Master Wrangwysh considered himself the equal of anyone. Although he knelt and kissed their hands most correctly, there was no humility in his courtesy. When the merchant advanced on Anne she would have run away had she had the strength; as it was, with his great hand engulfing hers, she very nearly fainted.
Not quite, because Richard of Gloucester was beside her, proffering the wooden baby which his friend had carved for her. He laid it in her arms, and it was still warm from John’s grasp. The slight roughness of the wood was soothing, as soothing as Kat had been, and as the Duke guided her back to the fire and sat her down on a cushion, her fear subsided.
Soon Master Wrangwysh and his daughter departed to be presented to the Countess, and John borrowed back the poppet to finish it off before he went home to York for Christmas. The Duke had noted his elder cousin’s covetous glances at it, and tactfully suggested that on John’s return he should carve her a poppet as well. Isabel wavered between desire and pride. Pride won; she declared that she was much too old for poppets, and honour was satisfied all round.
Somehow that winter was not so cold for Anne as all the others she remembered. Snow, frost and rain pursued their dreary cycle, and she spent a large proportion of the time in bed, sniffling and coughing. Her toes and fingers and nose were always purple and numb. But there was New Kat to cuddle through her sickness, and there was the Duke of Glo
ucester to ask how she was.
John also talked to her sometimes, ducking his head respectfully, and she came to learn the names of the five other lads. The Duke had been supplanted at bottom of the class by Francis, Lord Lovel of Titchmarsh, better known to his contemporaries as Frank. He was a sturdy lad with a mop of yellow hair that did not seem to know which way to grow. His slow progress was not due to lack of ability but to the faraway look in his wide-set eyes. What he could do superbly was to play the lute, and it was this, and the composition of new lyrics to sing to it, that took him away from the tiltyard. Robert Percy, who came from the Border, scoffed at the wayward musician and said that the only instrument for a man was the pipes. Since, when challenged, he proved not to be able to play them, his argument lost its force and there was a fight instead. These were the squabbles inevitable in a litter of hound puppies. In general they were a happy band. As the Duke’s acknowledged partner and protégée, Anne found herself accepted by them without question.
In the first mild spell of the spring Richard took her up to the old castle. She sat contentedly on the central mound, nursing New Kat, the sharp scent of blackthorn flowers drifting past her nostrils, and watched her guide marching round purposefully to investigate. After the survey he came to sit beside her, breathing quickly. For some time he ran on about his discoveries and she listened attentively, liking the brave sound of the long words he used. Then they fell silent and looked down on the newer castle where they lived, which squatted comfortably in its nest of small houses. Years later it seemed to Anne that she had spent most of her life at Middleham sitting on the slope of the earthworks, with Richard beside her drawing a piece of grass through his teeth, the sloe blossom creaming the bushes and speckling the grass. Only the occasional blink of red as the Neville standard stirred in the slight breeze; otherwise everything was green and brown and blue, the river in its valley an errant ribbon of the sky, and the buds shiny on the trees.
Nevertheless Richard was away sometimes for long periods, and it was difficult for her afterwards to recall Middleham when he was absent. She was too nervous of stumbling to dance with anyone else, and Isabel, who was generally amiable when the Duke of Gloucester was present, tended to scold. Her most memorable moment, Richardless, was the arrival of the first letter she had ever received, complete with pendent seal. And her pride in the letter was increased by her ability to make out, in the Duke’s own handwriting, the resounding greeting: ‘To our right well-beloved and noble cousin the Lady Anne.’ Isabel would not speak to her for days afterwards.
Yet even in the security of the fortress in Wensleydale she could not fail to hear of outside events. As she grew older she was able to connect them together more readily and begin to understand why it was that her father was the greatest man in England. On his brief visits to his family, the Earl of Warwick was generally on his way to or from a victory over the Lancastrians. King Edward was firmly on his throne in London, but the terrible Queen Margaret would not quite relinquish her hold on England. Time and again the Border fortresses fell into her hands, and time and again King Edward’s champion marched north to wrest them away from her. Anne could not help resenting a little, on her father’s behalf, the way in which the King took his ease in the south and left to his mentor the endless toil of safeguarding the kingdom. But this was one case in which her cousin Richard did not agree with her. If he worshipped Warwick, turning quiet and unobtrusive to the point of invisibility in his presence, he idolised his eldest brother. When he rode off one Christmas to join Edward in Durham, he burned with such eagerness that Anne knew a pang of jealousy; he had never turned a gaze of such intensity on her. And when he came back, months later, he talked of nothing but the King for days. He had quickly discovered that Anne did not share his enthusiasm, and set about with great patience to explain Edward’s policy.
‘My brother has already proved himself a leader in war. Now he leaves it to us to keep England safe while he learns to rule it in peace.’ She could tell that he was repeating words that the King himself had spoken to him, although she could not picture the glittering royal jester saying anything so serious. Did he never make fun of the Duke of Gloucester? she wondered; she would have thought that her grave companion would have shied away from his boisterous sense of humour even as she had.
But she was forced to accept Richard’s admiration of his brother, despite her inability to understand it. It was that, she came to realise, which swayed his life. He once let fall the remark that at the age of ten Edward had been able to wield a full-sized battleaxe, and another time that he had fought his first battle, with Warwick beside him, when he was thirteen. There was such a world of longing in Richard’s face as he spoke that she comprehended the reason for all his secret exercise.
It was paying off. Instead of lagging behind the other henchmen he was fast overhauling the best of them. He had always been good on a horse; the animal seemed to respond without reserve to the will of its young rider. Now he had discovered the trick of balance and timing which served him better than brute strength, and he could handle a sword and bow with confidence. At the gentler arts of dancing and music he remained awkward. Apparently, matching his brother in grace and courtliness was not one of the goals he had set himself.
But Richard’s devotion was due for its first test. In the year of Anne’s eighth birthday Warwick went to France to conduct negotiations for the King’s marriage. News came infrequently to the castle when the Earl was not there, and it was a particularly peaceful summer for the household, unruffled by several skirmishes farther north which disposed of the last Lancastrian resistance. The children were playing nine-men’s-morris in the outer bailey on an evening in September. It had been a cloudless day and not much energy was left for the game. Between turns the boys sprawled on the grass; Anne wished that her nurse had not made her wear a linen pinafore. The page sprinting through the postern from the castle broke into their indolence. He was a pretty, round child, whom Anne distrusted because he never looked straight at her, and he was very excited.
‘The King is married,’ he blurted, without any of the formalities due to the lordlings he was addressing.
‘Married? Who to?’ It was Robert Percy who confronted him, standing squarely before him with arms akimbo. Laziness forgotten, the others were all sitting bolt upright.
‘To a Lancastrian widow, sire.’ The page caught up on his courtesies with satisfaction at the effect of his announcement. There was a shout of protest from the henchmen, Yorkist to a boy. Above it rose Robert’s voice again, gruff with coming maturity.
‘My lord will never allow it. When he comes home—’
‘He is home, sire.’ The page was swelling visibly. ‘And he’s given his approval. Though it’s said he’s not best pleased.’
There was a vigorous chorus of agreement with the Earl of Warwick’s sentiments, but it died away as Richard stepped up to the messenger and asked very quietly, ‘Is this true?’
‘Oh yes, your grace. Master Barton told me in confidence and he spoke to my lord’s own man, who’s come direct from Reading to my lady.’ The revelation of his source of information rather spoilt the gratifying reception from his betters. Derisory remarks about Master Barton’s lap-dog started to fly, for the chamberlain’s sudden fondnesses were a standing joke. Uncertain of how to regain their attention, the child launched into a description of the council meeting at Reading where King Edward had announced to his astounded peers his fourmonth-old secret marriage to Lady Elizabeth Grey. Several of the henchmen continued to scoff, and two went off for a private tussle over one of the morris pieces. The nine-minute wonder was passing when Isabel pushed to the front of the group and slapped the page across the face.
‘How dare you tell such lies!’ she said in a hard shrill voice. ‘It’s a wicked falsehood and I don’t believe it!’ To the consternation of all she burst into tears. The Lady Isabel in tears caused almost as much of a sensation as the news of the King’s marriage. Attendants converged on
her with kerchiefs, the page fled snuffling with bright red marks on his cheek, and the boys were all talking at once.
Except for the Duke of Gloucester. Anne had been watching him ever since the name of his brother had been tossed into the lazy evening. Apart from the one question he had taken no part in the vigorous crowd reactions, standing among the irregular patterns of the nine-men’s-morris with his head thrown up, listening intently. As Isabel staged her scene, he turned and walked away. Anne followed him. He made for the stables, and putting an arm briefly round the neck of his own bay gelding he climbed the ladder to the loft and sat on the edge of the new hay, dangling his legs. When his cousin appeared at the top of the ladder, a little puffed from the effort of scrambling up in a long kirtle, he turned his head but said nothing. Anne saw no invitation in his face, but neither did she see rejection. Crawling clumsily into the hay she sat down beside him. He did not move for a long time, staring down at the polished stone he had carried away from the game, his lips compressed into a thin straight line. Anne waited, feeling for his mute distress, yet content to be able to share it. The rich open-air scent of the hay was all about them, pricked through with the sharper odour of the horses. It was nothing to her whether Edward married a Lancastrian widow or the Empress of Cathay, but it was terribly important to Richard.
‘Why didn’t he tell him?’ he muttered at last, and she understood at once that it was not so much the act itself that upset Richard, but the King’s deceit in concealing it. When he seemed to be finding no solution to his query, she ventured what was to her the most logical explanation.
‘Perhaps he was afraid of what my lord would do.’ The Duke threw her a glance which was distinctly hostile; she wished she had held her tongue.
‘My brother is afraid of nothing,’ he said stiffly. Then he saw her biting her lip, and added with almost a smile, ‘It takes a brave man to cross my lord your father.’ Back in favour, Anne resolved to make no more helpful remarks. ‘But to take a Lancastrian queen...’ Richard went on, talking to himself, and for the first time Anne felt a flicker of fearful involvement. Had they just rid themselves of one monster queen to acquire another? Following her own timorous train of thought, she remained aware that beside her the Duke of Gloucester was trying to square the King’s behaviour with the image he kept of him. Finally he looked up with a short sigh. ‘It must be for the peace. The King told me he wanted no more battles, but to win people by love. So he’s shown the way by marrying a Lancastrian himself. After all, we’ve had enough of French queens, and this one is English.’ Thus far he was sure of himself, but anxiety was creeping in. ‘Maybe he didn’t think my lord would understand, after fighting Lancaster for so long.’ His voice trailed off, almost on a question, and his mouth tightened again. Anne knew she must say something to set his mind at rest.
The White Queen of Middleham: An historical novel about Richard III's wife Anne Neville (Sprigs of Broom Book 1) Page 4