Queen by Right (5 page)

“Oh, go to sleep. You just don’t understand,” the unhappy Anne complained, leaving Cecily more puzzled than before.

A
NNE HAD BEEN
right about the weather. When the cock crowed the next day and the pale Christmas sun crept over Keverstone Bank, it sparkled on the light covering of snow that had turned the frozen, furrowed fields into a completely new and tranquil landscape. After breaking their fast and attending Mass, the hunters hurried down the stairs from the different towers of the castle and converged on the marshalsea, where horses and dogs were snorting clouds of hot breath into the cold air.

Cecily loved days like this. It was as though God wanted to cover the drabness of brown November by dazzling His people with an immaculate, magical
mantle in December. She was glad of her two pairs of stockings under her warmest gown today, and she called for a groom to help her onto Tansy’s back and keep her leather ankle boots from getting too wet. For once she was content to be riding sidesaddle along with the other ladies in the party, with her heavy woolen gown tucked cozily around her legs. Her hooded, fur-lined cloak warmed her upper body and head, so that when the group trotted through the gatehouse and north toward Cockfield, she forgot about the frigid air and instead reveled in the excitement of the hunt: the running hounds yelping in the distance, picking up the scent of their prey, and the colorful cavalcade of riders jostling for position to ride in hot pursuit.

George called to her from a courser in the midst of his fellow henchmen, and she waved back gaily. Richard was there too, his chin jutting forward in concentration as he kept his mount in check. Cecily knew that she would have to hold back and ride like a lady today—a thought that chafed her—but when her mother chose to ride beside her, Cecily’s heart sang. ’Twas an honor indeed to hunt with the countess, she knew, and so she sat her horse proudly.

There were more than forty riders that day, and some of the fewterers were having difficulty restraining their greyhound charges from slipping the leash. When a horn sounded in the middle of the forest ahead, Earl Ralph gave a whoop and a tally-ho and urged his horse into a fast canter. As she watched all the males in the group follow suit, it was all Cecily could do not to dig her heels into Tansy’s flanks and join them.

Joan eyed her with amusement. “Good girl, Cecily,” she said, taking a hand from her fur muff, pushing a graying curl out of her eyes, and tucking it back under her felt chaperon. “You must learn when you may let down your hair and when you may not. ’Tis not easy being a lady, my dear, and I fear that you, of all my daughters, may have the most trouble with it. Kat was ungovernable when she was a child, but she grew out of it quickly. Your father, I am afraid, encourages you.” She watched her husband’s saffron cloak float out behind him as he entered the forest, and she smiled. “He is sixty-one, and yet still he rides like a young knight,” she said half to herself. “He swears ’tis the fresh, cold air of the north that keeps him healthy.” Seeing that Cecily was still listening, she added: “For my part, I prefer the warmer London air—though the smell of that city can be more than unpleasant, in truth.”

“When shall I go to London, Mother?” Cecily asked, enjoying the unexpected intimacy with Joan. “I should dearly love to see London Bridge. Rob told me that there are houses and shops on it. Is it true?”

“Aye, ’tis true. Your brother is a man of the cloth and so would not lie to you, Cecily,” Joan told her. “You will go to London all in good time, but first we must arrange your formal betrothal to York sometime in the summer before Anne goes away.”

Cecily gasped. “Anne going away? Where? Why? She did not tell me,” she cried, slowing Tansy to a walk to keep pace with her mother’s plodding rouncy. She forgot her disappointment in not riding with the men, for this news was more important. Her life was about to change.

“I have explained to you before, child,” Joan said, a little testily. She was tired these days, and after bearing thirteen children, she was eager to put motherhood aside and enjoy her late middle age, knowing that each of her ten surviving children was well provided for. “Young women of noble birth must devote themselves to becoming wives, which oft-times means leaving their own home and joining another great house. ’Tis where we learn to become loyal to our husband’s family and devote our life to our children and support our husband’s ambitions. And thus Nan will go to Brecon and be under the protection of my cousin Anne, Humphrey’s widowed mother. I expect Nan and Humphrey will be properly married inside the next two years.”

Cecily digested this and stared ahead in silence. Despite the awkwardness between the sisters, Cecily drew comfort from having a sister close to her age share in her daily routine. Her three other sisters were long gone: Katherine to Framlingham Castle in Suffolk, seat of the Mowbrays, dukes of Norfolk; Eleanor to Alnwick Castle, where her husband, Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland, guarded the northeastern border from the Scots; and Joan, still a novice but soon to be veiled, to Barking Abbey near London. And now Nan was to leave and be out of reach in the wilds of Wales.

“Dear Virgin Mary,” she prayed, “do not desert me too. Nan is not the best of companions, but she is always here. Please stay with me when she goes.”

It then occurred to her that her turn would come one day, and her stomach lurched. But another blast on a hunting horn, much closer now, banished her morose thoughts, and the baying dogs told her that an animal was cornered.

This time she made up her mind not to be left behind, and before Joan could command her to stay, Cecily had urged Tansy into a canter, and horse and rider expertly wended their way through the woods toward the source of the commotion.

Then, as she drew closer and slowed to a trot, her eye caught a movement to her left. Every muscle in her body tensed.

“It could be robbers,” she thought, knowing that they were common in the forests of lawless England.

She was just regretting striking out on her own when she gasped in wonder. Slipping between two white birch trees and perfectly camouflaged against the snow was an ethereal, almost mystical beast.

“The white deer,” Cecily whispered, transfixed.

Suddenly the hind saw her, and for a second the delicate creature and the lovely girl stared at each other. Cecily held her breath. And then it was gone, springing over the snowy ground and disappearing behind a copse of hazel. Cecily exhaled in awe. Taught to believe in holy signs, she was convinced the Virgin had visited her, and she crossed herself reverently.

“You will be with me always, will you not, Holy Mother,” she whispered. “I know that now.” And so she vowed never to tell anyone about the hind. The idea of such a gift from God being felled by hunters and dogs horrified her.

Kicking Tansy into a fast trot, she headed for the huntsmen and their victim—an enormous stag, its summer-red fur turned winter gray, with a magnificent rack of antlers that Cecily knew would join others on the walls of Raby’s great hall. The skilled huntsmen were making short work of the still warm animal, and after it was gutted, the dogs were given their grisly reward. Cecily hated this part of the hunt and looked away from the glassy eyes and lolling tongue as the stag’s lifeblood oozed onto the snow. She was aware of a rider sidling close to her and recognized Richard’s voice—half boy, half man, asking if she would like to leave the scene.

Cecily held her head high and shook it vigorously. “Nay, Dickon. One cannot join in the hunt and then not stay to respect the death of such a noble beast,” she said, quoting her father word for word. “I cannot help but feel sorry for him, ’tis all,” she murmured. With a brave smile, she asked who had found the stag’s heart with his arrow.

“It was your father, Cecily. He felled the stag with one shot.”

“And you and George? Did you loose your arrows?” Cecily inquired, one eyebrow raised.

“Aye, both of us did—and missed by a bow’s length.” Richard grinned back. “Master Beckwith will surely berate us for our lack of markmanship.”

By now the ladies had joined the group. Standing by the stag, Ralph proudly lifted its head by the tines to show Joan.

“I won the day, my lady!” he cried. “We shall have venison to spare for the Twelfth Night feast.” Joan smiled and waved, but she was cold and, calling to
Cecily to rejoin her, she and her ladies turned their horses and made their way back through the trees to Raby.

“When we are wed, Dickon,” Cecily told him in confidence, “we shall have our own hunts and shoot our own deer, shall we not? I would dearly love my own hawk when I am bigger. Might it be possible?”

Her childlike earnestness touched Richard, and he leaned across his saddle and kissed her quickly upon the cheek. “Certes, it might, Cis,” he said. “We shall have a merry time together, I promise.”

Cecily’s heart sang. “Nan cannot be right,” she thought. “It seems he likes me just as well as her.”

Though, if the truth were told, she did not feel the ache in her heart that Anne had described, nor did she feel a bit like swooning—whatever that meant. She shrugged, wheeled Tansy around, and trotted after her mother.

That night she dreamed she rode from Raby upon the white deer and, turning her head back to the square Bulmer Tower, she saw her father’s haggard gray face gazing at her from its parapet, his heart shot through with an arrow.

T
HE HARSH NORTHERN
winter turned finally into a breathtaking spring complete with the native gentians carpeting the grassy limestone banks with their vivid blue flowers. On Cecily’s ninth birthday, the third of May, Anne was sent to her new family in Wales. Cecily was disappointed that Anne would not see her betrothal to Richard, but the Stafford family was impatient to welcome the young Neville bride.

Unable to stop herself crying, Cecily was puzzled by Anne’s calm demeanor when she first made obeisance to her father and mother and then allowed herself to be embraced by both. Cecily was accustomed to Joan’s lack of emotion and was not surprised by the countess’s stoic “God be with you on your journey, Daughter.” But she could not understand how Anne could resist throwing herself into her father’s arms, as she would have done. Instead, her sister accepted his gruff kiss and admonition to be a good girl and walked to her brothers for their farewells. Something in Anne’s serenity prevented her usually rambunctious siblings from teasing or hugging her. When she came to Richard, who stood quietly at the end of the line, she lowered her eyes and blushed.

“Farewell, Anne,” Dickon said amiably. “I am certain Cecily will miss you.”

Anne lifted her head and pouted. “And you will not, Dickon?”

Richard was taken aback, though he nodded an affirmative. “Forgive me. We shall all miss you. And I wish you all happiness with Humphrey Stafford.”

Anne sniffed, turned on her heel, and stalked toward her waiting escort. This was too much for Cecily. Believing her sister had forgotten her, she ran after Anne and caught her arm.

“Nan, do you have no words of farewell for me? You forgot about
me
!” she cried, her tears wetting Anne’s hand as she lifted it to her cheek. “Will you at least write to me when you get to Brecon? I promise I shall write back.”

Anne’s face softened for a moment, but, determined to show she was her mother’s daughter and soon to be a countess, she gently pulled her hand away, and kissed Cecily’s cheek lightly. “Aye, I promise I shall write, Cis. Now, I pray you, stop crying like a baby. It is not the way a duchess behaves.”

Cecily stared in dismay as Anne left the hall, her brown velvet cloak billowing behind her. Then, seeking the comfort of her father’s loving arms, she did not see the wayward tear that trickled down her mother’s plump cheek.

Perhaps ’twas as well Nan would not be here to see my betrothal, Cecily thought uncharitably. Why, her sour face might spoil the whole day.

I
T HAD TAKEN
a bevy of tiring women to dress Cecily for her first public occasion. First they slipped a new shift of finest silk over her golden head and tied it at the back of the neck. Then they helped her into an underdress of crimson sarcenet and fastened it down her back, its tight sleeves coming to a point over her wrists. When she had been measured for the gown, Cecily had idly wondered when her breasts might start growing, and she was torn between wanting to retain her boy’s riding garb and filling out a beautiful gown. Now she wished she was already a grown woman as she admired the exquisitely embroidered wide-sleeved houpeland draped like a coat over the sarcenet and belted above the waist, causing the satin fabric to flow in an avalanche of white around her lithe young body. The garnets that were sewn in the center of the large embroidered roses mirrored the red underdress, thus effecting a mingling of the white rose of York with the red and white Neville colors.

Joan bustled in to supervise the last details. She presented her daughter with a piece of her own jewelry: a heavy gold necklace from which hung a sapphire the color of Cecily’s eyes. Joan’s gray eyes reflected her satisfaction with her child’s appearance. She commanded one of the women to brush Cecily’s yellow mane twenty more strokes before proclaiming it ready to receive the simple coronet of white roses.

The women stood back in admiration, and Cecily grinned back at them.

Then she scrutinized her mother’s critical gaze. “Do I look like a duchess, my lady?” she asked with a hint of concern, and then an urgent, “Mam, will I do?”

“Aye, Daughter, you’ll do,” Joan said, breaking into a smile. “Richard of York is a fortunate young man.” The women looked relieved. Adding their compliments, they gave the gown a few last-minute adjustments and wished her well.

Rowena Gower had the honor of holding Cecily’s train as the women processed carefully down the newel stair to the courtyard, where Ralph, the sun shining on his white hair, waited patiently with his entourage. He was joking with two of his squires. Standing a little apart, conversing with the Neville brothers, Richard nervously fingered the jeweled hilt of his dagger. When Cecily emerged from the shadow of the staircase, the men fell silent as one.