“My Lord Mountjoy?” Richard could not help interjecting. “But he was there at the beginning for us—I mean for Edward. How foolish to offend so faithful a friend.”
Warwick nodded eagerly. “You see the way of it, Richard. And wait, there’s more.”
Richard stood aghast as the earl reeled off the important marriages Edward had apparently arranged for his new family: the young duke of Buckingham for one sister; the duchess of Norfolk for a brother; another sister for the heir of the earldom of Arundel; and the earl of Essex’s son for a third sister.
“But Her Grace of Norfolk is in her late sixties,” Countess Anne exclaimed. “That boy John is only twenty-one. ’Tis monstrous and…” she tailed off as she recognized signs of an outburst in her husband… “is there more, dear?” The whitening of Warwick’s knuckles around the stem of her favorite Venetian goblet told his wife there was, and she tensed.
Too late, the twisted, colored glass snapped, and the bottom fell into the rushes. Lady Warwick sighed sadly, as the rest of the useless vessel was flung against the wall. Richard, on the other hand, was impressed. He had often been tempted to throw something in anger, but he was afraid the event would be reported to Blackbeard, and pleasing that exacting master of henchman had always suppressed his urge.
“The most heinous decision involves our family, my lady,” Warwick was saying, sucking his bleeding finger. “You remember my brother’s son—our nephew of Northumberland—was promised the hand of Nan, heir to the traitor Exeter’s lands and fortune?” Binding her husband’s injured digit in her kerchief, Lady Anne nodded. How could she forget? The mother of the girl was Anne, duchess of Exeter, Edward’s oldest sister. “The ingrate Edward has now rescinded those thanks to please his queen,” Warwick continued. “Instead, the king paid his sister, the duchess, a vast sum to buy the marriage contract for Elizabeth’s wastrel and no-name son, Thomas Grey. It is an insult.”
Richard could not help himself. He suddenly laughed. “That means Tom Grey becomes Ned’s nephew as well as his stepson!” The innocent irony tickled him, but the earl glared at his young cousin, and Richard hastily covered his laughter with a fit of coughing. “It is an insult to our Neville house indeed, my lord,” he demurred.
“And one I will not soon forget, my lord of Gloucester,” Warwick assured him. “I hope your loyalties run deeper than your brother’s. At least deeper than the length of a woman’s passage.”
“My lord!” his wife protested vehemently. “Curb your tongue, I beg of you. Would you use such description in front of our daughters? Nay, you would not! Richard is younger than Isabel and like a son to me. Now, apologize at once.”
Astonished and warmed by the mild-mannered countess’s defense of him, Richard found himself the recipient of a reluctant, none-too-sincere apology from the outraged earl. Hoping one day he might repay her, Richard bowed low over Lady Anne’s hand. He gave his patron a more cursory nod and left the room.
His mind was in turmoil. He desperately wanted to believe the best of Ned, but his sense of justice understood how the earl might feel his honor had been violated. As well, he was beginning to comprehend just how much Edward was ruled by his sexual urgings, and this deeply disturbed him. Could his brother be losing his way?
In the years at Middleham he had become the earl’s loyal servant as much as his brother’s, and that his family loyalties might somehow be conflicted had never crossed his mind. He hoped he would never have to choose as he hurried to find Traveller, the one constant in his life and in whom he could confide without fear of judgment or recrimination. And above all, a creature he could trust.
Surprisingly, it was hard to find a contemplative spot in massive Middleham Castle, but Richard had found one not far from its walls. Early in his time there, when Traveller had bounded off after a rabbit, ignoring his master’s commands to “Come!” Richard had followed him into the copse surrounding the rubble of the original castle on William’s Hill a few hundred yards away. The ruin had become Richard’s favorite place of solitude when he found the thick castle walls and bailey teeming with people suffocating.
The refuge called to Richard one spring day after a strenuous practice with the mace and war hammer. He actually preferred these effective weapons when in the saddle. There was something not quite right with his posture when he tried to wield a longer sword on horseback. The day after he had worked with the sword, he again noticed his back ached considerably, and Rob had teased him that he was getting old.
The meadows around Middleham were peppered with sheep, the frisky lambs gamboling near their dams. The faces of bright buttercups turned up to the sun as Richard sauntered through them. Traveller loped beside him, as happy to be outside the confines of the castle as Richard was. Richard breathed in the fresh air, expelling the stench of sweaty squires, horse manure, and effluence from the latrine chute nearby in the tiltyard, where the knight trainees spent their mornings.
From the top of the sole remaining but ruined tower, built in the time of the Conqueror, Richard could see the vast, forested, rolling dales beyond the Cover River valley, stretching forever to the south. Seated in a niche vacated by one huge stone that must have tumbled from the wall a century or so ago, he basked in the sun, idly swinging one leg to and fro. After a while, he drew a letter from his jacket.
How now, little brother, Meg began, her elegant script impressing Richard, I trust I find you well. Perhaps you have not heard up there in the wilds that Ned may finally have succeeded in foisting a husband upon me. Richard sighed. Poor Meg, Edward had offered her at least four other bridegrooms, but then, for one reason or another, the arrangements had come to naught. She was twenty-one, past the usual marrying age, and had decided, when last Richard had seen her, that she was destined for spinsterhood. He wondered who the lucky man was this time and read on. It seems Ned has come to terms with Burgundy, much to French Louis’s disgust, and I am offered to the widowed Charles, Duke Philip’s heir.
“Christ’s nails!” Richard exclaimed to Traveller, sacked out precariously on the ledge beneath him. “My lord of Warwick must not be pleased.” The dog did not raise his head or open his eyes but thumped his tail on hearing his master’s voice. Richard knew the earl was at court at that very moment to advocate for an alliance with France. Warwick had seemed confident Edward would listen to his mentor this time and had ridden off with high hopes for a reconciliation. Burgundy was no friend to France, however, and Edward’s design for Meg would thwart Warwick’s plans once again. Richard frowned. He loved and admired both men and wished they could see eye to eye. The earl was older and more experienced, but Edward was the king and his own man. “And my brother,” Richard said to himself, sighing. “Ned must always come first.” But Ned did not make it easy.
He lowered his eyes to the vellum again and read on. You may know that Antoine, the bastard son of Duke Philip, will come to London next month to take up the queen’s Flower of Souvenance challenge made to him by our English Anthony—Woodville that is. Richard had heard that the queen had revived the ancient tradition of asking a knight to carry out a deed of chivalry in her honor. Anthony had taken up the challenge, his namesake in Burgundy was to meet him in London for a joust. Richard did not have much patience with jousting, thinking his burgeoning skills as a soldier should only be exercised in real combat. “One should not use them to pretend to fight,” he once told Rob, who had once again rolled his eyes at his sanctimonious friend.
Margaret’s next statement surprised Richard as he well remembered her bemoaning that women had to marry where they were told. Ned has not yet agreed to my marriage and, I am astonished to tell you, he says he will wait for my response before signing anything. It sounds kinder than it is in truth, for, as I write, French emissaries are in London to negotiate with Edward through Warwick to see if there is a better match to be made for me. Dear God, I feel like a ball being kicked around Europe until I score a suitable alliance. I want to ask you, dear Richard, if you remember Count Charl
es during your time in Bruges. Is he a pleasant man? Richard cast his mind back to those months of exile in 1461 with George at Lord Gruthuyse’s house, but it was only the bastard Antoine he remembered. Tall and proud, the duke’s favorite son was far closer to his father’s heart—and side—than the younger, legitimate, French-favoring Charles. He also knew, having been privy to yet another diatribe from Warwick the previous autumn about Edward’s failed foreign policy, that Warwick had loathed Charles on sight. Probably not what Margaret wanted to hear, Richard decided. All I know of him is that he dislikes his father, Meg wrote on, likes soldiering a little too much, and that he has a ten-year-old daughter, Mary. She has even been dangled in front of Edward for George, who stormed off in a fury when he heard.
Richard chuckled. “Poor Georgie,” he said out loud. “Serves him right.” He doubted George would be satisfied being consort to a girl—nay, a baby—who would have to wait for her grandfather and father to die before he might attain title to Burgundy. “Poor Georgie,” he repeated, with an unkind smirk.
He had not noticed Traveller’s low-throated growl until a voice behind him said sweetly: “Why ‘poor Georgie,’ may I ask,” and when Anne Neville revealed herself, the wolfhound stopped growling, thumped his tail, and raised his big head to welcome her.
Annoyed, Richard demanded, “How long have you been here? How did you know where I was?”
Anne flushed. “I…I always know wh…where you are, Richard,” she stammered. “You come here often.”
Richard rolled up the parchment and stuffed it back inside his jacket. “I come here for peace and quiet,” he told her. “If I had wanted company, I would have asked for it.” Damnation, he would have to find another more private retreat. Observing the downward turn of her delicate mouth and tears brimming, he was immediately contrite. “I did not mean to speak so harshly, Anne, but you do not need to follow me everywhere.” He patted the seat. “I pray you sit down now that you are here. Is there some reason for seeking me out today?”
Certes, there was, she wanted to tell him. She would like to be near him always, but she knew he would not understand, and he didn’t seem to care for her. If only she were as beautiful as Isabel… She pushed the thought aside and, tiny as she was, slipped beside him, the space only allowing her to have her back to the view.
“Do you have bad news from George?” she asked, eyeing the bulge in his jacket. “In truth it is about him I am come, Richard.”
“Indeed?” Richard cocked his head, his gray eyes curious. He certainly was not revealing Margaret’s information to the child and chose to answer her question with one of his own. “What has George done now?” It was then he saw fear flit across her face, and he patted her hand. “Tell me, Anne. I swear I will not repeat it.”
“You know Father and the king have quarreled, don’t you? I do not understand the politics and I don’t want to, but it is on a more personal matter which they disagree.” She hesitated, looking sideways at him for permission to continue. “Do you remember last Christmas at Warwick?” She saw him nod. “Did you know Father had invited George to come? I heard Father tell Izzy that he hoped to talk to George about a possible marriage between them. But the king found out about the invitation and denied George permission to visit us. Izzy told me George had written to her to say the king would never allow them to marry.”
Richard was now staring across the Cover valley, chewing on his lower lip. So that was the way of it. He began to piece things together. Christ’s bones, no wonder George was angry when Mary of Burgundy might have been thrust on him. He means to marry Isabel, and Warwick wants the match! The why of this escaped him for the moment, but whatever it was, it obviously had upset Edward enough to forbid the marriage.
For a moment, the part of Richard that disliked George gloated over his brother’s lack of common sense. Why anger Ned like this? But then thought of Ned’s displeasure was drowned in a flood of self-pity. Isabel is in love with George! How stupid I have been thinking she could possibly love me, he thought miserably, concluding Isabel would now never be his. A sigh escaped from him.
“Richard?” Anne leaned toward him and touched his shoulder gently, making Richard jump. He had forgotten Anne was there. Anne, however, had recognized the signs of agitation in her idol, and pulling his silver ring on and off his little finger was one of them. “I hope you are not angry with me. I only thought you should know.”
Richard patted her hand. “You did right to tell me, little one. It explains much.” He was suddenly struck how brave the girl was: she had in essence betrayed her father’s confidence to him. And not just any father—Warwick was, after the king, the most powerful man in the kingdom. Richard bent over to kiss her on the cheek and was rewarded with a blush. Although only eleven years old, Anne had demonstrated more courage than he had owned at that age, he admitted. This was no mealy-mouthed girl, he could see, and he vowed to be kinder to her.
“Thank you. I will not forget this confidence.”
“Promise me you will not tell Izzy?”
“I swear. Now, we should go before someone wonders where you are.” As Richard moved to leave his perch, a painful twinge in his back made him wince, and he wondered, yet again, what part of all his exercising was causing him this discomfort.
June and July passed leisurely enough, and the great distance between the dales and London meant very little news from the south filtered northward.
All that changed when it was learned the earl was returning to Yorkshire at the end of July, and he wanted his household to remove to Sheriff Hutton castle, ten miles north of York. Countess Anne was puzzled; they always spent summers at Middleham. Packing and moving a household of hundreds would be even more irksome in the heat, she had told her girls.
“I don’t much care for Sheriff Hutton,” Isabel announced in response to this news. She put down her needlework and picked up her little dog. “It’s always so windy there.”
“Well I like it,” Anne countered. “It’s much smaller and cozier than Middleham, and so close to York. Besides, the wind will cool us.”
Isabel ignored her. “What do you think, Richard?” She tilted her head and smiled at him.
Strangely, Isabel’s flirting no longer excited her cousin; it had not done so since Anne had told him about Warwick’s plans for George and her sister. He had been surprised, and a little dismayed, how swiftly he had been able to relegate the lovely, buxom young woman of his wet dreams to the rank of friend. Is it that easy to fall in and out of love, he had mused, sadly.
Unwilling to side with either sister, he diplomatically replied: “I could not say. I like both castles for different reasons.” Both girls looked crestfallen, and the countess sighed to herself. She thought Richard a nice young man but enigmatic. Too serious and secretive were words she had used to her husband, and Warwick had laughed: “Nay, Richard is old beyond his years. He just thinks too much.”
Richard was also perplexed by the earl’s command to move, and later, as he and Rob walked the ramparts in the late evening sun, he shared this news with his friend.
“In truth, I should enjoy a change of scenery,” Rob said. He had been disappointed the earl had not taken him to France with him, Warwick having told Rob that his training was nearly at an end and he could soon relinquish the title of squire and become a fully fledged knight. “Do you think the move is significant?”
Richard shrugged. “Countess Anne said they have always remained here in the summer.”
“Perhaps it is the plague. I heard the court had removed to Windsor because of it. Sheriff Hutton is farther north.”
Richard shook his head. “Nay, it is as though he is retreating farther from the king’s reach. It causes me to wonder if the earl’s embassy to France went awry. Or, more seriously, that Ned sent him on a fool’s errand, and they have quarreled again.” Richard pulled at his ring and stared over the treetops far below them in the Forest of Galtres. Should I be sharing such thoughts with Rob? He was a Percy after
all, although not of the Northumberland Percies who favored Lancaster, but distant kin nonetheless. He looked at his friend who was busy pretending to pull back an arrow in an imaginary bow and letting it loose. Richard’s hesitation made Rob look back at him, and he saw the question in Richard’s gray eyes.
“Christ’s nails, Richard, can you still not trust me after three years?” Swiftly unsheathing his dagger, he held the point at Richard’s throat before laughing and taking the hilt to his lips and kissing the cross. “Dolt! You will always have my bond, my lord of Gloucester.”
Richard relaxed. “My pardon, Rob. Aye, I trust you—although thousands wouldn’t!” Grinning, he dodged a feigned blow from his friend. “I will confide that my lord of Warwick told me before he left that he was enjoying Ned’s friendship again. I was much relieved. It is true that Warwick favors the French alliance and the king, Burgundy’s, but I cannot believe Ned would have sent Warwick to France for nothing. And yet…”
Rob answered with a raised eyebrow. “Who knows? If you are right and Warwick lost his temper…” He grinned as Richard mimed their lord’s propensity for throwing things.
“Then I would expect our patron needs to remove himself from court for a while,” Richard finished for him. “Et bien, we shall know soon enough, I suppose.”
Richard’s logic had stumbled on the very reason for Warwick’s retreat north. The king had used the earl’s absence to forge ahead with his own diplomatic alliances without interference.
Within a week, the earl was greeting his family in the courtyard of Sheriff Hutton, pretending he had not a care in the world. But new furrows along the earl’s brow and dark shadows under the piercing eyes told a different tale. The division between the kingmaker and his king had deepened.
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