The White Queen of Middleham: An historical novel about Richard III's wife Anne Neville (Sprigs of Broom Book 1)

by Lesley Nickell

  She had scarcely taken her eyes from Richard since they entered the castle, clinging to him in imagination as decorum kept her from doing in fact. But when they were alone after centuries of impatience, the doors shut, there was no restraining the tingling eagerness of her body. Her modesty, his diffidence, were flung aside as they sprang to each other. Somehow they reached his bed, and then it was all desperate quivering haste, to tear away the obstacles that held them apart, to kindle again the flame that had leapt between them among the windflowers, to fan the flame into a single blaze. The possession she had tolerated was now essential, and as he took her she cried out. But that was not the end, it was the beginning of a greater conflagration, and as he moved within her a wave of light and colour swelled from the fire until it swept over her and she was engulfed in its warm flood. And together they drowned in the iridescent whirlpool of its ebbing.

  She returned to her separate self with her husband gently smoothing the hair from her damp forehead. A dream, she thought bemusedly, and yet no dream had carried her to such heights before. Bathed in its radiance, she could almost believe that it was true, and she lay with her eyes still closed, trying as so often vainly before to plunge back into sleep and recapture it. Richard’s hand slid to her breast, and she opened her eyes on his face, not kind, but grave, passionate, his own hair disordered and sweat gleaming on his temples in the candlelight. She saw that they were naked, their bodies intertwined on the velvet coverlet, and she understood that all her dreams had been but shadows of the reality. She caught her breath at the revelation, and he bent to kiss her with a new languor which saluted their unity. Then he smiled, and pulling over them the fur which had almost fallen from the bed, he stretched himself close against her. His heart beat against her own ribs, not yet stilled from its pounding, and she was aware of all his thin nervous frame relaxed at her side. And as she had wept for the beauty and frailty of the white flowers by the waterfalls, so she wept again with the sadness that is inseparable from joy.

  6: NEWCOMERS

  Anne did not learn all in one night. The weeks of celibacy that had roused her senses, and sharpened his, had brought them together with extraordinary passion, which they must discover

  again with patience. As Richard had once remarked to his brother, Anne was totally different from the mistress who had instructed him, and he was a pupil as much as she. But they were willing scholars, who often sacrificed their sleep for their studies and yawned happily through the day while they reflected on their progress. It was hardest for her to accept that he could find such delight in her body, which she knew well, from her own observation and from a lifetime’s disapproval in others, was not beautiful. He tried to convince her with words and demonstration, but she still believed he was only being kind to her. And so it stood until she found that he thought as little of his own physique as she did of hers. They were talking of the old days, of the rigorous régime which the boys had undergone in their knightly training.

  ‘I fear the good master of henchmen looked on me with some despair when I first arrived,’ remarked Richard ruefully.

  ‘Oh no.’ Anne denied it quickly. ‘He must have realised that you were more courageous than any of the others, because you were the King’s brother.’

  He shrugged. ‘King’s brothers have no monopoly on courage, dear heart. It was a hard struggle.’

  ‘I know. I saw it.’ She hesitated. Until this moment her witnessing of his solitary practising with the broadsword in the quiet courtyard had remained close in her heart, and she was not sure that he would be pleased to hear of it. But she had to go on, haltingly, and explain. ‘I didn’t mean to watch. It was a place I often went to be alone. And you were down below. I couldn’t help myself. I think ... I think that is when I first loved you.’ Industriously she traced the silken flight of a bird on the coverlet, and did not see that Richard was deeply touched by the little secret she had cherished for so long.

  ‘Well,’ he said, trying to laugh, ‘I taught myself to swing a battleaxe, but it has done my shoulder no good. I’m almost a hunchback.’

  ‘No, you’re not!’ With an exclamation almost of pain she turned on him, and shyly touched the knot of muscles that swelled out his right shoulder a little higher than his left. ‘I’m glad it’s like that. It - it is you...’ And then she stopped, understanding suddenly how he also could love her for herself, and nothing more.

  Her life was a constant discovery, and at first she was afraid to be too happy. That, also, had to be learned, and in the security of Middleham, in the spring of Wensleydale, the tight-closed bud of her personality, so nearly withered by the coldness of neglect, opened at last to the sun. It was not all lovemaking and May Day jaunts in search of flowering boughs of hawthorn. She was expected to be the mistress of Middleham in more than name. The steward, the cook, the chief sewer, came to her for instructions in her own right, and not as her husband’s deputy. If she had thought about it, Nan the kitchen-maid of last autumn, directing the running of a great castle household, she would never have been able to face it. But there was no time to think. During the day as well as the night she must strive to please Richard in everything. If it pleased him that she should approve the cook’s newest sauce, or sanction the buying of twenty ells of damask for bedhangings, then she would do it gladly. He never criticised her, and there was nobody else of sufficient rank to dare. Instead of the snubs of the past she met with respect and obedience. Her tentative orders were translated into efficient action by a well-trained staff, her uncertain choices deferred to, and she gained confidence as she observed daily with some wonder that the business of the castle was running more and more smoothly.

  While she inspected the linen-presses and pantries of her domain with an unexpected relish, her husband was tackling the wider problem of governing the North for the King. To begin with he stayed at Middleham, but soon he began to travel farther afield, to Bolton Castle, to Skipton and Richmond, and to spend nights away in York or at Sheriff Hutton. It was the first little cloud on the unshadowed surface of Anne’s happiness. Foolishly she had imagined that he would never stir from the castle without her for more than twelve hours.

  ‘Yorkshire is a great shire,’ he said to her gently, pitying her distress at the prospect of sleeping alone, ‘and if I had a horse with wings I would fly back to you. But one night is very short, love. And we will make merry when I return, shall we not?’ So she had to smile and pretend not to care at all for the lonely hours of darkness when she would lie and worry about his safety as far as forty miles away. But the brief separations ended in reunions which almost compensated in their delight for the time apart, and soon enough she became accustomed to them. In the ideal world which she had glimpsed, they would be always together with nothing to distract them from their devotion to each other. In this world, experience had taught her to expect little; Anne knew she must offer fervent thanks for the riches she had.

  Richard was away at Pickering when she was sick one morning upon rising. Her new attendant Margaret held her head, washed her, and sent her back to bed, despatching another lady for a hot posset. Anne was too preoccupied to notice the meaning glance that passed between the other two women. Before the sun had risen high enough to look in the windows of her chamber she had recovered, and she made no mention of the indisposition to her husband when he came home. Since her collapse on arrival at Middleham her health had been perfect, and she was ashamed of having spoiled her good record after only eight weeks. But Richard was with her a few days later when the same thing happened, and he carried her back to bed himself. Although he tended her with his usual solicitude, and brushed aside her apologies, there was a suppressed emotion in him which was not like anxiety. That night he made love to her with a special gentleness. Neither referred to the morning, but she could not dismiss a foreboding that she was sickening for some illness which would make her a liability to him. The third time, she waited until Richard had left her, in surprisingly high spirits, for a meeting of the
newly-formed Council of the North; miserable and queasy, she summoned Margaret.

  Margaret Cropper had been a ward of the Earl of Warwick, and on taking over responsibility for her, Richard had invited her to leave her sequestered estate near Skipton and to attend on his wife. Her gaiety had immediately endeared her to the Duke and Duchess, and her warmth soon drew her into a friendship with Anne closer than any since the summer with Soeur Madeleine.

  ‘I think you must fetch the physician to me, Meg,’ she said. ‘He may know of some remedy to prevent my growing worse.’

  ‘The remedy is many months away, madame,’ replied Margaret cheerfully, and Anne was a little hurt.

  ‘This is not a time for jesting. My lord would be most displeased if I were to fall ill again. There are so many things for me to do.’

  ‘It will pass, lady, in a few weeks.’ Her attendant’s eyes were indecorously brighter still. ‘And I doubt very much if my lord will expect you to work quite as hard when it does.’

  ‘Meg, why are you laughing?’ asked Anne quite severely; she had always hated jokes that she did not share. Margaret dropped to her knees beside the bed.

  ‘Dear madame, you are nigh on the last person in the castle to guess.’

  ‘Guess what?’ Suspicions began to float into her mind.

  ‘What happened to your monthly course in May?’ Nothing had happened, but since they had begun in the sanctuary of St Martin’s only half a year before she had thought nothing of the irregularity. Now she remembered Isabel, pale and ill in the mornings, smug in the evenings, in the fortress at Calais, and at once she understood.

  ‘Oh no, Meg. We couldn’t tell so soon. There must be other signs... before we can be sure.’

  ‘Of course. We can’t be certain until June is out. But my lord suspects, madame. He asked me the other day if there was any news, and I had to say none.’

  The nausea was fading away, and a feeling of awe was slowly taking its place. This was a consequence of her marriage that she had not foreseen at all. That their hours of love could lead so quickly to conception, that she was a vessel capable of bearing Richard’s child, had never occurred to her. To Margaret’s dismay she suddenly pressed her hands over her eyes and whispered in a tremulous voice, ‘I’m not strong enough. I’m not worthy.’

  She did not break the news to Richard until another clear month had passed. Even then she was hustled into it by a sudden remembrance that her brother-in-law had abandoned her sister’s bed as soon as she was pregnant, and had not returned to it until long after Isabel’s sad deliverance. It came to her one hot night as Richard went to touch her, and she could not respond to him. When he asked what was wrong she replied, ‘Perhaps we should not while I am - I think I am - oh, Richard, I believe I am with child.’ And then she could say no more, for he stopped her mouth with kiss after kiss, interspersed with delighted endearments. In the confirmation of an event he had divined weeks ago, he was far more than usually exuberant. Anne was taken aback by his reception of the tidings she had received so solemnly.

  ‘Why so grave, dear love?’ he rallied her. ‘It’s a birth we’re awaiting, not a death.’

  That made her smile a little, but she said, ‘It is so far ahead. What if something should happen to me? I might fall ill again.’

  He drew her into the crook of his arm, and was serious again. ‘In Wensleydale? With me and all of Yorkshire to watch over you? It’s not possible.’ He placed one hand softly on her belly. ‘You are as safe in Middleham as our child in your womb.’ Then he would have caressed her further, and she tensed again.

  ‘Will it not harm him, Richard?’

  ‘Of course not. You have thrived on our lovemaking, so why should our son not thrive too?’ And gratefully she relaxed into his embrace, submitting to his judgement and never question ing the source of his certitude. Even the high honour of carrying his heir would be tedious without his comfort in bed.

  By St Swithun the morning sickness had gone and they resumed the gentle tours together that they loved, visiting not only their noble and clerical neighbours in castle and abbey, but also the humbler folk in village and shepherd’s cot. It was part of Richard’s purpose to meet as many as possible of the people beneath his rule, to learn their needs, their hopes and their fears. Like her husband, Anne found a sort of fellowship with the undemanding people of the dales.

  Richard still left her behind when he journeyed farther afield, with admonitions to take care of herself. Towards the end of July he rode in with sunset, returning from Pomfret. As usual Anne was on the steps of the keep to greet him, but he was preoccupied, kissing her with the warmth but not the joy that was customary on his homecoming. Although he behaved normally during the evening, and talked of no troubles, his wife’s eyes detected a hidden tension, and she longed to be alone with him so he could unburden himself. When he came to her, instead of throwing off his robe and hastening their reunion he wandered around the chamber for a while, scuffing in the rushes. At length he sat on the side of the bed, twisting the signet ring he wore on his little finger. She broke the silence timidly.

  ‘What’s amiss, Richard?’

  ‘Nothing, love. Nothing.’ He seemed to make an effort to collect himself, and smiled at her. Anne persisted.

  ‘Did something go ill at Pomfret?’

  Ignoring her second question, he flung aside the sheet that covered her and said, with a playfulness that was slightly forced, ‘How our son grows! I swear he has swelled you since Thursday night.’

  She caught at his hand and said urgently, ‘Richard, you can tell me. If it is bad news that concerns you, then it concerns me too. You may be eased by sharing it.’ Surprisingly, hurtfully, there was no answering pressure.

  ‘No, Anne.’ He spoke quite coldly. ‘I cannot share it. There is nothing that need trouble you.’ The rebuff was the most bitter she had ever received from him, and she sat motionless, feeling the coldness from his voice and his grasp spread into her heart and stomach. It was the tremor in her hands that made him look into her stricken face and see how he had wounded her. At once his strangeness melted and he raised her chilled fingers to his lips. ‘Truly, dear love, I cannot tell you. It is not my secret. And there must be times - only now and again when there comes a matter which I cannot discuss with you.’ His want of frankness became less important as the Richard she loved reasserted himself. She found herself indeed almost apologising as he discarded his bedgown and came back to her. ‘I didn’t mean to pry. But to see you unhappy—’

  ‘Not unhappy. A little disquieted, that’s all. Now, let me measure the size of this mighty child of ours. ...’ She giggled, and the hurt was forgotten in their loveplay.

  Her pregnancy ripened with the corn in the little fields by the Ure. When the harvest was in, there was no longer need for Richard to jest about her size; the thin stuff of her summer gowns displayed unmistakably her increased girth. Since the early sickness she had suffered no other ailments, and Richard observed with approval the well-being which filled out her thin face with the bloom of health. The little broken creature he had salvaged from the kitchen ashes not a year ago was becoming a person. As he had scarcely dared to hope, Wensleydale and his love were restoring her, and the child would complete the cure.

  So it was hard to break it to her that he must go to London for the autumn session of the Parliament. For himself, he hated the city, and he was deprived of the pleasure of watching and supporting his wife through several important months; for her, he was wretched at the thought of her loneliness. But she took it better than he expected. Once accustomed to the idea of parting for one or two nights, she was braced for longer absences. London, he pointed out, was only five days’ ride away, and she should hear from him as often as he had time to write. Summer was drawing to a golden close as they woke in each other’s arms on the morning of his departure. They said little, but he kissed the new curve of her body; it was a pledge that, although he would not be there, a part of him lay within her. As he rode down t
he steep main street at the head of his company, Anne was reminded of the boy who had ridden eagerly towards London and the service of his brother without a backward glance. Now he turned again and again to wave to her, until he was out of sight, and the ache of his going was solaced with the knowledge that he would not forget her.

  The nights were the worst. During the day she still took an active part in the running of the household, and somehow the baby seemed to take up a great deal of time, in thinking, speculating and talking about it. She took Margaret to bed with her and found that she was a restless sleeper, totally different from Richard, who hardly moved from night until morning. Or perhaps it was because, exhausted from the exertions of love, she and Richard had seldom had any difficulty in sleeping together. There was some excuse for Margaret’s unquiet nights: she was falling in love with John Wrangwysh. He, who from her arrival had been bewitched by her, had not yet realised what was happening, and Margaret suffered agonies of fear in the small hours that he would not requite her. From the lofty eminence of her own matrimony Anne looked on and listened with sympathetic amusement. The little romantic drama helped to pass the time. She wrote of it in one of her notes to Richard, borne by the tireless Sir James Tyrell, who spent most of that autumn riding up and down Ermine Street between his master and mistress. In November he was the welcome herald of the Duke’s return, and Richard and his train materialised out of the fog of a raw afternoon near St Andrew’s Day.