B008257PJY EBOK (23 page)

In the crisp sunshine of the May morning, the royal cavalcade rolled out of Westminster soon after breakfast, clarions blowing, horses clip-clopping, baggage carts rumbling. Beside him rode Kendall, Catesby, Ratcliffe, and Rob Percy in a tight group, bobbing in their saddles. John Howard and his son Thomas were in Essex, guarding the region against invasion, and Francis was in Southampton, on watch in the southern counties, attending to the refitting of the fleet. They would join him later. He had committed the defence of London to Brackenbury’s capable hands, the white-haired Merlin who’d been Constable of the Tower when young Edward had disappeared.

His gaze moved past his friends to a stout figure in a furred scarlet mantle and feathered black velvet cap riding ahead in a smaller group. Stanley had been at his side since he’d taken the Crown, had not requested leave from court, and had given him no reason to doubt his loyalty. Yet the Wily Fox remained a dangerous uncertainty in spite of all the favour Richard had shown him; all the lands, wealth, and offices he had granted him in an effort to win his heart. There were measures that would neutralize Stanley’s threat to him, but he had refused to take them. In testing his success with Stanley, he was testing himself and the success of his reign.

Dogs barked, children laughed, and the townsfolk cheered. The royal procession wound past Charing Cross and the little church of St. Martins in the Field. They were taking the west road out of London, going to Berkhampsted by way of Windsor. Though Barnet would have been a more direct route, he had no heart for Barnet. There were memories whichever way he turned, but Anne had been fond of Windsor.

They approached the Mews where his falcons were kept, and proceeded into St. Martin’s lane. They passed the fair homes of his knights. Ladies stood at the windows to wave their husbands farewell, and many were weeping. It was a scene sickeningly familiar. He had tried to spare his people war, and he had failed. Once more Englishmen would gather to kill Englishmen; friend to slay friend.

The minstrels broke into a stirring march with drums and flute as they neared St. Giles. White Surrey snorted, lifted his crimson-plumed head higher. Richard glanced down at his noble destrier, prancing to show off his burnished hoofs. Proud and beautiful, his silken white coat shimmering in the sun, he attracted as much attention as Richard himself. Richard was reminded of the day twelve years ago in the courtyard of Barnard’s Castle when Anne had gifted him with the stallion, not knowing that white was an unlucky colour for a war horse. To his gilded saddle she had pinned a piece of parchment that carried a verse from Apocalypse:
I saw heaven opened; and behold a white horse; and He that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in justice He doth judge. Richard closed his eyes on a breath: I tried, Anne…

He leaned forward and patted White Surrey’s fine neck. He was an exceptional beast, a rare blend of strength and intelligence. At Middleham on that last day there had been sorrow in those velvety eyes.

The lilting march ended and the minstrels switched to a different melody. Plaintive and sweet, it was one he had heard many times in the halls of Middleham. His thoughts turned to Anne. She had believed that love cured all the world’s ills, but she had forgotten that love was a double-edged sword. It cut as well as healed.

He forced his mind to the conversation around him, so he wouldn’t dwell on memories.

“…Never did I think to see the day come when a no-good French-Welsh bastard would dare lay claim to the Crown of England,” one of his knights was saying. A chorus of angry shouts met this remark and someone cursed Tudor. “The only true claim he has is to being a bastard,” offered another knight. “Aye, true bastard lineage on
both
sides—not many can boast of
that!
” Everyone laughed.

Richard’s hands clenched around his reins at the name he’d learned to hate. Tudor had destroyed all he’d loved and left him nothing. He had tempted Buckingham away and forced him to send Elizabeth north. He was behind every traitorous plot, behind every foul rumour. Maybe even behind Ned’s death. He winced.
If Ned’s death, then Anne’s death.
Hot pain flooded him.

Tudor was a phantom without a face, the winged dragon of his nightmares with fiery eyes the colour of blood. He gritted his teeth. One day he would look into those dragon eyes, lift his sword, and plunge it down that devil’s throat, straight into that black heart. He would do it, by God, if it were the last thing he did on earth.

~ * ~

At Berkhampsted bells pealed for evensong when the royal cavalcade approached the gates and crossed the drawbridge into the castle yard. The odour of cooked meat stung Richard’s nostrils and his stomach contracted; he’d had little appetite in months and the smell of food now elicited a touch of nausea.

He was met by his mother’s chamberlain leading an entourage of her officers. Richard had arrived during evening prayers, the man explained apologetically, and the Duchess could not be disturbed, for distraction was an enemy to the peace and inner stillness she sought. The household routine rested strictly on religious observance, and as was her custom, at the first stroke of the bell, she had taken a drink of wine until her chaplain was ready to accompany her in reciting the evensongs, and as the bells died away, she had entered the chapel to hear vespers chanted by the choir. She would join him afterwards in the solar before supper, if that was acceptable to the King. Richard inclined his head in assent.

He was led through the great hall being set for dinner, and up to the royal apartments. The room was elegantly, if sparsely, furnished. A bed with a dark silk coverlet and bronze damask curtains stood against one wall; a table with a silver ewer and basin on the other by the window; and a writing desk and chair before the hearth. No bright tapestries of courtly love adorned these stone walls, but a dark series set forth the Passion and the tale of St. Mary Magdalene.

He undressed with his squire’s help, splashed rosewater over his face and neck, and washed his hands before donning a fresh grey velvet doublet, dark suede hose, and a jewelled collar. He shrugged into a black velvet mantle and put on his black velvet cap, pinned with his emblem of the boar. The sun was setting as he finished his toilette. He left his squire and took the steep winding steps to the western battlements. A fierce wind blew, refreshingly cool, carrying the sweet smell of grasses and wildflowers. It was May, the season of rebirth. He dismissed the guard and stood for a long moment, gripping the stone turret.

This time last year, Ned was buried in Sherriff Hutton.

He rested his weight on his hands and gazed over the lovely rolling meadows and the broad river, glistening like molten silver in the sunset. A flock of magpies flew overhead, black against the violet sky, mewing noisily, and from the distance floated the faint bleating of sheep and tinkling of bells. The earth was bathed in a divine tranquillity. Once he had understood such beauty, had felt it strike a resounding chord deep within him. Now there was only an aching despair, a yawning loneliness.

The soft murmur of voices came to him. He looked down at the courtyard. A large gathering of ladies was leaving the chapel, led by his mother’s tall slender figure in plain black silk. Her white hair was barely visible beneath a veil of stiffened black gauze and at her waist hung the chaplet of gold beads his father had given her. With the aid of a silver walking stick and steps slower than he remembered, she crossed the courtyard and mounted the outer staircase to the great hall.

He left the battlements and took the worn stone steps down to her solar.

~*~

Cicely, Duchess of York, bent to kiss her sovereign’s hand but Richard restrained her. He lifted her slender hand to his own lips.

“But you are King,” she said a trifle sharply.

“I come not as your king but as your son.”

Her wrinkled mouth, still well-shaped, softened. He followed her across the woven silk rugs, past the long wall of flaming torches and tapestries depicting the legends of St. George and St. John the Baptist, and they took seats by the west window, on gilt chairs set near a pre-dieu. She adjusted her skirts with a smooth, elegant gesture. As he waited, his eye strayed to the tapestry displayed on the south wall: the Wheel of Fortune.

His gaze lingered on the familiar scene woven in golds, topazes, and darkly mysterious greens. It was the solitary profane subject among all the religious series, and it spoke for his mother’s life as vividly as the religious scenes betokened the lives of the saints, for she had been raised to many a dizzy height and dashed down to many a dismal depth. In a way, the Wheel of Fortune carried almost sacred significance for them both.

“Wine?” his mother inquired.

Richard shook his head. The servant went over to a table beneath the tapestry where a little malmsey pot resided next to a blue velvet primer and a white leather psalter. He removed the cover of silver and gilt, carefully poured wine into a silver goblet, and brought it to her. She took it and dismissed him from their presence. After a delicate sip, she set the goblet down on the table beside her. “’Tis good to see you, my son. It has been a long time.”

“Since before my coronation,” Richard replied.

She made no response and her face was unreadable. She sat erect, her hand gripping the carved armrest, her head held high, gazing at him steadily with her bright, blue Neville eyes. An image of Warwick flashed through his mind, and for an instant and with a stab of despair, he saw John clearly.

“I’m here to tell you three things,” said Richard. “First, that you were right.”

“If that is what you thought I wished to hear, you are mistaken.”

“You were right, my gracious lady mother,” he repeated, “and I wish you to know that I have sent Bishop Langton to Rome for a Papal dispensation. I intend to have Edward’s children declared legitimate. As soon as it is granted, I’ll proclaim Richard of York my heir to the throne.”

“Ah.”

“You’re not surprised?”

“I am never surprised when you do what you believe is right. You have always striven to do right, even at your cost. Like your father before you.”

Richard was speechless in his astonishment.

The Duchess spoke again. “Have you thought how young Lincoln will react? You shall have to set him aside.”

“Jack knows. He’s sworn to act as Protector and to safeguard the throne for little Richard, and if anything happens to him, for George’s son.”

“He is an honourable young man.” She regarded him steadily. “What is the third thing you came to tell me?”

“Farewell.”

Her lips parted in surprise. “Farewell?”

“I go to battle. Whether I return is up to God.”

“You have been to battle before and seen no need to take special leave of me.”

“Those were different times.”

“And now?” she pressed. “What is different now? No King of England has died in battle since Harold at Hastings.”

Richard pushed out of his chair and went to the window. He couldn’t tell her that this was his last battle; that this would be to the death—his or Tudor’s. For him there was no other way. He would not plunge England into a civil war to keep his throne.

Blue twilight had fallen over the countryside and little lights were appearing down in the village. He heaved a deep breath, turned back, scrutinized his mother. She sat rigidly erect, with the aura of a queen, but more remarkable after all the years and all the losses, was her serenity. She was old; she had greyed; her health had not been good of late; yet she exuded peace. Gazing at her, it was easy to remember why she had once been called “The Rose of Raby.” But there was more than faded beauty in her face. There was strength, and the grace that comes from a tranquil heart.

“How do you do it, Mother?”

“Do what, Dickon?”

How long since anyone had called him Dickon! They were all dead now; all who had called him Dickon. “Bear all the death… You lost my father, your brother, and Edmund in a day. Of four sons, I am the only one left.” He didn’t add,
and the least loved
.

Her eyes widened and for a moment she seemed unable to reply. He had surprised her. Never had he asked her anything of so intimate a nature. There had always been a barrier between them, stemming from her clear but unspoken belief that to be royal was to be different; royalty never displayed or discussed feelings.

But despite her outward calm, Cicely Neville was deluged with emotion. By devoting herself to prayer and contemplation of the Divine, she had severed herself from the trials and tribulations of normal daily life and found spiritual repose, yet from the moment she had set eyes on the ravaged face of her last-born child, she was deeply affected. Memories flooded her of her little changeling child, the dark one hanging back from his golden siblings as though he felt himself an intruder; of the trembling seven-year-old who had clutched her hand fiercely at Ludlow but held his head high, determined at all costs not to let his terror show.

She had always had a special regard for Dickon who, almost from birth, had seemed a lost soul. He had struggled to live, struggled to belong, to measure up, to earn what had come to the others without effort. And clearly, that struggle had failed and the failure was carved in terrible lines on his comely face. Gaunt and pale, his eyes encircled by dark shadows, he was a man sore wearied by care and watch, and it hurt her deeply to see his pain.

She rose, came to him, placed a hand on his sleeve. “I do it with the help of God.”

“And what if God is set against you?” he cried suddenly.

“Why do you believe God is against you, Dickon?”

Emotion overwhelmed him. He averted his face. “You know why.”

“No, I do not.”

Richard heaved a deep breath and it seemed to him that the air seared his throat. “God turned a deaf ear to my prayers. He took from me everyone I ever loved. Anne—Ned—Katherine—” His voice broke.

“’Tis through suffering that we find Christ, my son.”