B008257PJY EBOK (12 page)

“Finally, my dearest lady, we can set our sights on Middleham,” said Richard to Anne early in the first week of March, “as I promised.” A rare smile spread across his face. “We shall soon see Ned—and take care of problems along the way, of course, we must do that, but we are on our way to Ned!”

Spring was in the air. They felt it in the touch of the sun on their skin, caught it in the scented breeze that brushed their cheeks as they rode across the valleys and the fields. They saw it in the half-melted snow and the blueness of the vast skies overhead where frothy white clouds floated. They heard it in the cries of birds soaring across the hills. Richard and Anne exchanged many a happy glance as they rode together.
What a relief it is
, their glances said,
to be gone from Westminster, to be in the saddle again, heading north, north, north…

For pure pleasure they tarried two days in Cambridge while Richard discoursed on divinity with learned doctors.

“Sometimes I find myself dwelling on what a holy man once told me,” said Richard to a doctor of sacred theology. “There is no purpose to suffering. It merely happens.”

“’Twas said by a man of little faith, Sire,” replied the good man. “There is purpose in suffering even if we cannot divine it. We must simply resign ourselves to things that pass our understanding.”

“But Scripture does say, ‘The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the brave, but time and chance happeneth to them all.’ Is that not what is meant?”

“You are questioning the injustice of life, and for that, we are offered no answer. Scripture merely relates how it seems to us, not necessarily how it is. As Socrates explained, man sees shadows and mistakes them for reality, for man has never seen anything else.
Faith
, Sire… We shall know the truth someday. But on this earth we must have faith.”

With that, Richard had to be content. Even so, their visit to Cambridge was a delight, a serene interlude. Before leaving, Richard and Anne bestowed generous grants on the university, then, on a dreary, drizzling morning in mid-March, they rode up the hills encircling Nottingham, their retinue clattering behind them. High above towered the massive fortress of Nottingham Castle built on a jutting outcrop of rock that glistened black in the rain. Anne reined in her palfrey.

“What’s the matter, dear lady?” inquired Richard.

“I don’t know, Richard… It must be the weather. Nottingham seems gloomier than ever this day.”

“Aye, ’tis indeed a dismal place despite all the money Edward and I have poured into it. Even my new tower with its spacious royal apartments and oriel window scarcely seems to have brightened it up.”

“’Tis not a place that can be brightened, Richard. It has an air about it.”

Richard gave her a smile. “We’ll not stay long, my love.” He squeezed her hand.

Anne inhaled deeply, braced herself and nudged her palfrey forward.

~ * ~

Affairs kept Richard and Anne in Nottingham longer than Richard had anticipated. It was not all unpleasant, however, for they were able to steal time now and again for hunting and hawking in the woods where Robin Hood had once roamed robbing the rich to give to the poor. Watching Richard canter with White Surrey through the dappled forest, his gerfalcon, Balin, on his wrist, a smile touched Anne’s lips. There was a bit of Robin Hood in Richard, she thought, for he had robbed the nobles of power to better the lot of the poor.
May God bless him
, she added to herself, spurring her chestnut palfrey after his mighty white charger.

March gave way to April and still they could not leave for Middleham. Easter found them at Nottingham, and it was at Nottingham they observed the thirteenth anniversary of the death of Anne’s father and uncle John at Barnet. But the Feast of St. George that followed that sombre day banished gloom with its joyous celebrations and feasting in the great hall.

Anne’s gaze fell on Bess Woodville’s daughter, Elizabeth, dancing with Jack. “Your niece is a lovely girl,” said Anne to Richard.

Richard made no response. Anne looked at him. “How can you not like her, Richard? She’s nothing like her mother and there is much of Edward in her.”

“Certainly she’s tall like him,” replied Richard.

Anne threw him a wry, indulgent glance. Richard had never cared for tall women. “Aye, Elizabeth is tall, but not ungainly so. She’s at least a finger shorter than you and a full head shorter than Jack. And she has Edward’s eyes. But I wasn’t thinking of her appearance as much as her character. She bears herself with grace and utters not a word of complaint about her hardships.”

“She is politic, then.”

“Not merely that, Richard. She looks on the bright side of things. ’Tis a good gift to have… Edward had it.”

Into Richard’s mind flashed the memory of the sea voyage to Burgundy after John Neville changed sides, forcing Edward to flee for his life. Edward had made a jest of his poverty and merrily offered his furred cape to the captain in payment. He could always laugh in the face of cruel fortune. “That he did.”

“And she’s generous like Edward. Already she’s given away one of her three new dresses to a poor knight’s lady. She said she didn’t need three anyway.”

“Maybe she’s filled with guile and knows that’s the way to win your favours,” Richard replied, raising an eyebrow. Anne reached for his hand. “She’s a Plantagenet, Richard, not a Woodville. You do her wrong.”

Richard turned his eyes back on Elizabeth, remembering the long-gone day when Elizabeth the child had danced with her father at her little brother’s wedding. Everyone had remarked on the charming scene, but all he could think about was his own brother George down the river, in the Tower, waiting to die. Because of Elizabeth’s mother. That witch. That
Woodville
.

He came out of his thoughts abruptly. Elizabeth was laughing merrily at something Jack said as she did a twirl under his raised hand. For a moment he thought of Edward and his heart twisted. Perhaps Anne was right about the girl, but it made no difference. He would endure her. He would find a gentleman to marry her. He would endow her, and treat her with respect. Not because he liked or trusted her, but because she was Edward’s daughter and he owed that to his brother. The minstrels broke into a pavane. Tired of discussing Elizabeth, in whom he had no interest, Richard offered his hand to Anne. “Will you dance with me, my lady?”

They took their places on the floor. Richard noted that his head minstrel had thoughtfully slowed the pace for Anne’s sake. It was evident to everyone that Anne had grown more delicate during the past year; so much so that even this small exertion was tiring her. The melody over, she panted, “My lord, it seems I’m getting old and must leave the dancing to others.”

Richard led her back to her chair on the dais and took his seat beside her. “Twenty-seven years can scarcely be said to be old, Flower-eyes.” He smiled, hiding his concern. “Not when you still have some teeth.”

His teasing had the desired effect. Anne’s mouth twitched with a smile. “You shall not be so rude again after the punishment I shall mete out to you,” she scolded.

Richard took her hand and tilted his brows uncertainly, “Dear heart, if it’s what I think it is, I beg your forgiveness most fervently, for I could not bear to be banished from your bed even for a night.”

“And if I choose not to pardon you, my lord?”

“Then, dear lady, you’ll leave me no choice. I shall command you to pardon me, for I am King and you must do as I say.”

Laughing, they turned their heads from one another. As they did so, their smiles died on their lips. At the back of the hall, coming towards them, was Anne’s mother. Clad in a black robe and mantle, unadorned by jewellery and leaning on a retainer’s arm for support, she dragged herself forward, her face contorted in anguish. Her dark figure contrasted so strangely with the glittering jewel-coloured silks and velvets of the other guests that it struck an unnatural note, like a sweet melody foully ended by a loud, jarring chord. The minstrels ceased their song and a hush fell over the hall. The guests stared, opened a path for her. Slowly, so slowly they didn’t realize they’d moved, Richard and Anne rose from their chairs, their eyes riveted on the Countess, a single thought on their minds.

Ned!

She had never left Ned’s side in all these ten years.

The Countess stood before them, eyes filled with tears, mouth working with emotion. “Ned,” she finally managed, “our beautiful boy… is dead—”

“
No!
” moaned Richard through bloodless, trembling lips. He stepped back and his chair crashed to the floor. “
No! O God, God, no—
” Thunder exploded in his mind and broke into a tumult that threatened to bring him to his knees. He covered his ears but the din rose to a crescendo of intolerable pain. He staggered to the wall. Reaching out blindly in his agony, he caught the cold stone mantelpiece as his knees gave way.

Anne felt as if her blood boiled in her veins. She let out a long, guttural half-human wail and, driven by a pain of excruciating agony, fled down the dais, a quivering madwoman, running from wall to wall like a cornered animal until there was no breath left in her. With wild eyes she cast about, but there was nothing but blackness all around. Unable to see where she was, where she was going, she put out trembling hands before her and fumbled forward. Her knees collapsed beneath her and she felt herself falling down, down, down… into a deep, dark well without hope and without end.

~ * ~

Anne lay in her bed in a deep, drugged sleep, dreaming of gargoyles. But now it was not her father who stood wavering on the steeple, begging for the help she could not give, it was Ned. And now, the laughing, fiendish gargoyles were not Marguerite d’Anjou, but bore the narrow, wolfish face of Margaret Beaufort. Anne tossed wildly and cried out for Richard. She dimly heard him answer, but why did he keep saying, “Forgive me,” and where was he? She couldn’t see him…

Sleepless in his chair, and transfixed by pain in his breast so heavy and acute he could barely move, Richard held Anne’s hand, keeping vigil at her side. Flooded by memories, each a dagger thrust to the heart, he stared at her. Stared at her, and saw Ned, sleeping in his cradle, tiny fists on his pillow… Ned, at two, chasing yellow butterflies along the grassy hills of Middleham… Ned, Prince of Wales, walking solemnly in the procession at York…

Ned was gone.

Richard gasped for breath and closed his eyes. Was it the judgement of God? Had God taken his son because he had taken a Crown from his brother’s son? Anne had never wanted the Crown. From the beginning she had feared it. “Forgive me, Anne,” he murmured. “Forgive me—”

Along with the physician and the servants ministering to the King and Queen, the Countess moved about the gloomy chamber like one risen from the dead, bringing food and drink, which was returned untouched. She had been orphaned; she had been widowed. She had buried a daughter and lived to see the destruction of the great House of Neville. But nothing she had endured compared to this; this shattering grief. She had raised Ned from babyhood, had known him as she’d never known her own children, had loved him as she’d never thought she could love anyone in this world. Now he was gone.

Her eyes touched on her daughter asleep in the curtained four-poster bed and moved to Richard, whose silent grieving she found harder to bear than Anne’s tears. How much worse it was for him, she thought; to be a king, to lose an heir; to go on with kingly duties as though nothing had happened. He had put aside those duties for two days now, but soon they would clamour for his attention. Pity tugged at her heart. He looked slovenly, unkempt; not much like a king at all or even the old fastidious Richard she knew. For two days he had not shaved or bathed, and his white shirt, dingy and stained with perspiration, hung open at his neck. The stark pallor of his face heightened the darkness of the growth shadowing his chin as his stricken grey eyes stared mutely at Anne. Sometimes his lips moved, but she couldn’t make out the words.

She brought her gaze back to her daughter. Anne’s brow was feverish, her cheeks stained with dried tears, her lids purple and discoloured. The Countess drew in her breath. It wasn’t only their child they had lost. They had lost their future and their hope. In silence she reached down, drew a blanket over Anne’s shoulders, and mopped her damp brow. She took a cup of water to Richard and forced him to sip. Gently, hesitantly, she touched his sleeve. “My lord, it has been two days… we must go to Middleham.”

~ * ~

Middleham
, Richard thought, gazing at the castle that rose up before him.
Middleham
…

It was the sixth of May. Ned’s birthday. The child whose hand he had held in the darkness was gone.

Sunlight filtered through an opening in the clouds like rays sent from heaven, illuminating the black-draped castle in a strange light. He remembered its pearly glow the first time he had come to Middleham and met Anne. He had been nine then. Ned’s age. It had been May then, too.

He glanced behind him, at the litter bearing Anne. The trip from Nottingham had been ponderously slow and taken a week, for Anne was very ill and could not travel more than two or three hours a day in the bumpy litter.

The Countess appeared at his side. “How is my lady?” he asked.

“As well as can be expected, my lord,” the Countess replied. She bit her lip, and didn’t add,
for a mother who has lost her only child; for a woman who can never bear another
.

Richard looked back up at the castle. “Middleham… ’Tis a place where I was always happy.” He stiffened his back and tightened his hold on the reins as they began the ascent to the castle. The portcullis creaked open. Followed by his dark-garbed retinue, he clanged over the drawbridge and passed through the arched stone gateway into the castle. Servants, friends, and nobles stood in the courtyard in sombre dress and countenance. He was conscious of an eerie stillness as he approached, then they bowed and curtsied and there was the rustle of fabric and jingling of chains. Here and there he heard sobbing. His mind turned back the years to the glittering gaily-garbed, smiling courtiers who had gathered to greet him the first time ever he came to Middleham. There, on those steps ahead, at the foot of the massive stone Keep, had stood the great Earl of Warwick and his brothers, George and John Neville. “Welcome to Camelot, fair cousin,” John had said, winning Richard’s heart with a smile framed between two dimples.