“I’ve arranged for us to leave for Middleham at first light,” she said. Her fingers twisted nervously. “My son’s ailing, and I need to be with him.” A slight catch in her voice betrayed anxiety. “Because His Grace has business to complete in the city, our party will go on ahead while the weather favours us. Have your baggage ready for the men to remove before supper.”
Murmuring assent, the ladies turned in a milling crowd.
“Nan! Wait! I want to speak to you in private.”
Only a fool could have missed the sudden fever of interest. The pack of women exchanged furtive glances. Some lingered as long as they dared.
“What have you done?” Lady Anne touched a finger to my brow as the door finally closed behind them.
“A foolish stumble, my Lady. We’d been ice-skating and I was hurrying back—”
“My boy’s taken another fever.” She interrupted me, her voice trembling toward tears. “I need your help, Nan. You’ve more skill than any physician. Stay by me this night.”
The burden of Lady Anne’s words lay heavy on me, but how could I refuse?
* * * * *
Snuggled together in thick cloaks and draped in furs, our party dozed its way back to the north. The snow was melting. Already spikes of green pushed through the earth. Drowsily, the women murmured of spring and pleasant days upon the moors while the wagons rumbled over rutted tracks, the men cursing the mud that clogged the wheels and the dripping trees soaking their garments. Lady Anne insisted I travel with her in her litter beside Meg Huddleston and Elizabeth Parre. While they twittered like starlings, my own thoughts ran raggedly on unfinished business in the city. Harry would wonder at my broken promise.
Chapter Sixty-Three
Middleham Castle
Fleet as a deer, the duchess entered Middleham’s portals. Without stopping to remove her damp cloak, she rushed to the nursery, dragging me behind her like a bond-slave, questions flying from her anxious lips, servants dancing at her heels.
“How is he?”
“He slept well last night, Your Grace.” The stout Yorkshire-woman, flustered by the sudden interruption, left off lifting blankets from the press to dip a curtsey. “The physician gave him a tincture for the fever. It seems to have settled him.”
“Tell me what you think, Nan.”
We leaned over the flushed face lying on the pillow. Conscious of my own boy struggling and calling to me in Emma’s arms, I laid a hand on the prince’s brow.
“He still seems a little feverish, Your Grace. Perhaps I should give him some of my mulberry and honey syrup?”
Satisfied, she made a hasty departure, but not before scattering orders among the waiting servants which sent them scrambling in all directions.
“Bring me news when the prince wakes,” she called.
I hugged Dickon then, listened to his excited prattle and exclaimed over his growth.
“Aye, he’s strong as an ox, but it’s been a hard winter for yon lad.” Jane Collins nodded to the Gloucester prince. “Last night were so raw we couldn’t sleep for shaking. My bones ached like toothache.” She grimaced, rubbing her back.
“London’s still thick ice,” I said, holding my tingling hands before the blaze of the nursery fire.
“Tha looks pale, after the journey. I’ve brewed a posset that’ll put the colour into thi cheeks. We’ll all take a sup to bring some warmth into us bones.”
She stooped to lift a pot from off the fire and ladled steaming liquid into pewter tankards. “Drink it as hot as you can.”
I clasped my tankard in both hands letting the steam bathe my face. A sour smell of wine and pungent herbs made me gag. Startled, Emma lifted her head from the rim of her own cup, her lips ruby with moisture and Mistress Collins cried out.
“What is it, lass?”
I must have fainted. When I opened my eyes again she was chafing my hands and Emma knelt, mopping up spilled wine. Their voices rang hollow and distant—full of questions.
“Tha’s a nasty bruise on thi forehead. What hast tha been doing?”
The frantic beating of wings still bruised my ears. As I raised my tankard a sudden shocking premonition overwhelmed me like a great cacophonous swoop of black birds. Somewhere in the Tower a murder was being committed. But it wasn’t a murder by water as I’d told Genevieve and Alice. It was far more sinister, and one of the assassins was my own husband.
“Here’s a health to your Lordship!” A mocking voice called from far away. He heard the clang and skitter of a fallen goblet.
Licking the last, sweet drops from his lips, he tried to turn, but someone seized his arms and shoulders in a forceful, compelling grip. Suddenly, sickeningly, his world turned upside-down. He glimpsed red-spattered rushes and a blur of stone. Struggling, he cried out, but a heavy hand thrust into his hair and pressed him downward.
A glow of golden liquid rose to meet him. In its swirling depths he saw his own reflection, a white, staring face that seemed to swim in blood. Behind this awful image, two shadowy shapes loomed huge and menacing. He heard the rich echo of male laughter. The flowery scent of wine mingled with the stench of sweat and fear.
“Grab his legs, John,” a deeper voice said. “He’s changed his mind.” The northern vowels confounded him as he plunged into the darkness.
Just before the liquid slapped against his face he drew a breath to shriek. But the darkness swallowed him whole. His hapless fingers scrabbled against the wood, like the claws of a cornered rat. His legs seemed caught, as in a trap. Twist and writhe as he might, he couldn’t free them.
Again and again he swallowed cloying sweetness as if he sought to drain the barrel dry. At last his throat rebelled. He might have spewed had he found air, but a great light seared his eyeballs. The roar in his ears stilled as his lungs burst in an explosion of pain. Down, down he dived, wine-wrapped and drifting, and somewhere in his fading mind called “Mama!”
Somehow my mind performed a curious trick, linking it with another’s so that I saw through his eyes, tasted through his lips, heard through his ears and shared his suffering. I recognised Jack Green as the caller of the jeering toast. Miles laughed and ordered some knave named John to hold the victim’s legs. Never before had I seen a vision so strange. Events were surely catching up with me. What next?
Slipping early from my bed in the nursery next morning, I dressed in shivering anxiety. The grey, rain-lashed sky lightened as I made my way down to the Hall for breakfast. How I longed in that moment for Miles to draw me into the reassurance of his embrace, to tell me all was well, that his service to the duke demanded nothing but the carrying of messages and relaying of orders. But doubts, like a great flock of carrion birds feasted upon my thoughts.
I found Grace Pullan entertaining Lady FitzHugh with tales of Westminster and old Walt, spooning pottage into his surly mouth, making disgruntled comments. “A mighty expense for two little children.” He wiped dribble off his chin with the back of his hand. “I expect the king’ll be asking us to pay more taxes to pay for all this fol-de-rol.”
Genevieve, sitting opposite, turned up her aristocratic little nose and sniffed.
“Only a miser would put a price upon such an occasion,” she said. She toyed with her bread and meat as Walt hawked and spat and went off muttering about the foolishness of women-kind. She stuck out her tongue at his retreating figure. “Yon niggardy-breeches would’ve had a fit if he’d seen all we did in London.”
“You’re dressed very finely.”
Genevieve smiled, stroking elegant purple sleeves edged with coney fur. “I believe a certain gentleman may call upon me this day.”
“You’re a mischievous jade, Genevieve,” I teased. Grace Pullan laughed and Lady FitzHugh turned her attention on us with an indulgent smile. “Not satisfied with breaking hearts in London, you now seek to do the same in Yorkshire! But is there any news of Clarence?”
“Still in prison and set to lose all his titles and estates.” Genevieve pouted, looking pleased an
d smug. “Our little Lord Edward will be made Earl of Salisbury in his stead and the Duke will be Chamberlain of England. Lady Anne said it herself.”
“Well, we’ll see.” Lady FitzHugh seemed unconvinced.
Lady Anne has more power than any of you realise, I thought, listening to their chatter, but she won’t be satisfied until she wears a crown.
* * * * *
Three days of hectic preparations followed. Servants scrubbed and polished, swept and scoured, plumped up cushions and scattered sweet herbs among the rushes against the duke’s arrival. Lady Anne troubled her steward with endless instructions and sent us all on countless errands, so that I escaped to the nursery where the children proved less demanding.
During the afternoon of the fourth day she summoned us to the solar to listen to a harpist she’d hired to entertain her husband, knowing his fondness for music. A bleak sun streaked across the chamber like a sword, accentuating faces and eyes made pallid and hollow by winter’s absence of light. Melancholy brooded in the harps flowing arpeggios, lulling the mind into lost places and old memories, and I found myself thinking of Mara.
A sudden, harsh rap at the door destroyed the melody.
“A courier from London, Your Grace.” The steward’s brusque interruption provoked a rustle of curiosity. His familiar face seemed oddly strained and grim. “He brought this letter.”
Impatiently the duchess broke the seal. The chamber juddered into chilling silence. As if enchanted her features assumed a marble rigidity, her fingers curled like claws about the vellum. In a voice which shook and soared she read to us—
“The Duke of Clarence has been executed.”
“God have mercy.” Grace Pullan gasped and crossed herself—an action repeated on all sides. Even the harpist sketched a blessing.
“How could the king have his own brother put to death?” Meg Huddleston’s blanched face turned accusingly upon the duchess.
A terrible, cold sensation crawled through my limbs. Afraid I might faint again, I leaned against a trestle for support.
“No doubt the queen will be glad to have Clarence out of the way.” Lady Anne’s expression remained impassive but in her eyes a diamond-hard glitter ignited. “They say she’d good reason to fear him.”
No one spoke. Too many ugly rumours circulated. The king’s removal of Clarence meant Stillington would remain out of favour—an asset for my own safety—but Miles’ involvement bound him irrevocably to Gloucester. What other murderous schemes were being hatched in secret? This death would fuel Lady Anne’s ambitions for her precious son. An earldom beckoned but I knew she craved a loftier title.
Sure enough, Miles rode home in the duke’s entourage. Watching the familiar way the muscles moved in his shoulders as he dismounted in the courtyard, my heart lurched with that same passion as when I first saw him. I rushed headlong down the stairs. As always he swung me round in his arms, laughing and showering me with kisses. While he hugged me close, shaking snow-flakes from his hair, I found it hard to imagine he could ever hurt another. But when I took his hand in mine I trembled at its strength.
Chapter Sixty-Four
February’s snow showers quickly melted but little Ned of Middleham’s recovery proved equally brief. Struck down by a sudden fever that shook his frail body and addled his wits, the child took to his bed. While he rambled in a cruel delirium Lady Anne badgered Jane Collins with visits to the nursery and the duke consulted daily with his physician.
“The prince must be kept apart from the other children,” the duchess commanded. “His food and drink must be prepared separately. Nan, you must watch over him at all times. There’s no one else I can trust.”
I daresay many envied me this esteem but it caused more gossip. Perhaps she saw Dickon’s rude health as a testimony of my craft but I think she attributed more to my art as a seer.
“Can’t you look into his future?”
“I’ve already cast his horoscope, Your Grace. Destiny can’t be altered to fit our own desires.” I recalled Mara’s teaching with a heavy heart.
The stars predicted intelligence, quick wit and tenacity for Lord Ned, as well as affection and adulation—but a child born into a powerful family could surely expect such qualities. He didn’t lack courage and possessed a capacity for greatness, but poor health marred his fortunes. Unsurprisingly, the little duchess refused to accept the implications of this unwelcome augury.
“I know you can save him.” Her vehemence frightened me.
The following night as I sat by the child’s bed, the duke himself arrived.
“Will he recover?”
A pair of haunted eyes stared into mine. In the tumbling shadows cast by nervous candle-light I couldn’t tell whether they were blue or grey. Fear surrounded the duke like a miasma. I smelled it in his sweat.
“I believe so.” I kept my gaze steady although my hands trembled. “The fever’s finally abated and he’s sleeping calmly now. Sleep is the great healer, Your Grace.”
Together we looked at the child. The fine, corn-coloured hair lay limp and sweat-darkened upon the bolster, and the delicate, heart-shaped face gleamed waxen, but the breathing sounded more natural.
“If anything should happen to him—”
The voice cracked with emotion. This revelation of masculine suffering stung me to tears.
“I understand, Your Grace. There’s no one at Middleham who doesn’t love Lord Ned. He’s the sweetest child I ever nursed.”
“You’ve done well. Lady Anne’s always spoken highly of you. She’s never forgotten your kindness.” He touched my arm. “Now I, too, am in your debt. I’ll not let this pass unnoticed.”
The pinched face might have been carved out of wood. I couldn’t remember ever having seen such anguish. How will it be, I thought, when there’s no more aid for this child? In my heart I knew Lord Ned’s frequent fevers were not a passing phase. Hadn’t I seen the possibility of an early death in his birth chart? Though I’d tried to broach this subject with Lady Anne, she wouldn’t hear of it.
“My wife places much store by you.” He might have read my thoughts.
“I’m honoured, Your Grace,” I replied. I wished I could find the courage to speak honestly. I drew a breath. “My husband—”
“Is a loyal servant.” The troubled eyes fixed on mine. “I’ve trusted him with those things most dear to me.”
I’d never been so close to the duke before. I wanted to ask him to release Miles from servitude, to allow us to live freely far away from here, but now I had the chance I couldn’t speak of it. Fine lines like spider-webs etched his face. Stubble bruised his tightened jaw. His spirit burned as fierce as fire and I understood then why Miles pledged himself to follow this man. But Lady Anne nurtured his ambition. In spite of his tenderness for the child, a ruthless quality made me I shudder.
“You’re exhausted by your labours. You should rest. I’ll watch with the child now.” Strangely, compassion lurked in the enigmatic eyes.
“Your Grace should call me if there’s a need. I’ve given a herbal posset to Meg Huddleston for my Lady. She’s weary with watching and it’ll restore her strength.”
I longed to find some word of comfort to soothe away the twisted grimace of his mouth and ease his mind but my own inner eye filled with shocking images.
“My Lord—” I caught at the murrey velvet of his sleeve as he turned from me. “Sometimes we’re the victims of a fate more powerful than we realise. The moth drawn to the flame follows his desire even though the heat alerts him of danger. Sometimes we choose to follow a perilous pathway against the promptings of conscience or the heart.”
“You speak in riddles,” he said. But horror flooded into his eyes, and I knew I’d touched a nerve.
“You’ve many enemies about you, Your Grace,” I said daringly. “Forgive me for my presumption. I speak out of concern for you and yours.”
I made a curtsey, swiftly turned to leave, afraid he might see in my eyes the torn bodies and the blood
shed, the plunging hooves and tattered banners, the sinewy stranger’s hand grasping the fallen crown.
Back in the quiet of my own quarters where Miles slept deep, I fell upon my knees and prayed. I’d not prayed for a long time. I prayed for the child and the mother, but most of all I prayed for the consolation and absolution of the duke.
* * * * *
“Stillington’s arrested.”
Jack Green’s voice gloated. I halted by the half open door of our chamber and signalled Dickon to be quiet.
“So Ned Plantagenet grows more cautious.” Miles snorted with contempt. “I doubt the bishop will sing the information he seeks.”
“Oh, Stillington’s cunning. He’ll say as much as keeps him comfortable. But the king will stop his mouth once and for all if he thinks he knows too much.”
“What, after Clarence? I think not. He’d qualms enough about murdering his own brother, but when it comes to priests, these Plantagenets are squeamish.”
“Well, I’ll wager Stillington will wriggle free. Not because the king’s squeamish, but because the bishop has the luck of the devil.”
“And you should know all about that.” Miles laughed. “I’ve never known anyone as glib as you in a tight corner. Why when that gaoler asked us what we were doing—”
Dickon, tired of waiting, squirmed free and toddled into the chamber.
“Here’s my brave little knave.” Miles scooped the child up on to his knee and tweaked his nose.
I nodded to Jack, standing by the hearth with a tankard in his hand. Inwardly trembling, I set my basket on the trestle.
The Assassin's Wife Page 36