The Maiden and the Unicorn (60 page)

* * *

It took them an hour's quarter to cross the river and as much again to free themselves from a sandbank before they struggled further up the river's northern side. To have gone south from Amboise would have been swifter but there was a weir beneath the bridge and watchmen patrolling it and, besides, the west led to Anjou.

As prearranged, Jacques Levallois had sent horses to meet them four miles upriver and the boatman thankfully left them upon the bank.

"Are you hale enough for hardy riding?" Richard asked with concern.

"Are you?" she threw back at him.

He sighed, "I tell you I would not be a royal messenger to earn my crust. You can rub my saddle sores later, God willing. If aught parts us, seek out Adéle Levallois at the street of the silversmiths in Orléans."

"Richard," Margery reached up and kissed him. "Thank you."

By sunrise they were on the road to Blois. Jacques had already dispatched a courier the day before to Orléans to warn his wife of their arrival and to have fresh horses awaiting them. But it was all too easy, thought Richard. And once word reached King Louis in Tours... oh yes, a pair of cages would be made ready for them.

He was right. They had to leave the highway as frequently as an old man with a weak bladder and words became as precious as provisions between them. English, like gold, was not to be flashed in any market place. In Orléans two days later, Adéle welcomed them, and her hostess, a hospitable silversmith's widow of great heart, gave them food and stabled their weary horses, but by suppertime the news was bad. The King's soldiers around the city were reputed to be as numerous as worms upon a corpse and the mayor had doubled the guards upon the city gate. Leaving Margery hidden in the widow's cellar, Richard roamed the alehouses by the
quai
seeking a carter who might, smuggle them out. He returned jubilantly before the city watch began its march.

"I think our prayers are answered. I have just become reacquainted with a donkey." His wife, not surprisingly, for once was speechless.

* * *

Well, if Warwick could kiss Margaret d'Anjou's hand, it was an age for all kinds of miracles. Richard had met up with the players who had entertained them so riotously that night at Angers. Not only were they leaving next day, ambling north-east, but they also had a wanderer's disdain for authority and frontiers and were willing to hasten their departure to help Richard.

At his request, they sent one of their number out of the city with the fresh horses that Adéle had obtained for him. Meanwhile, they caparisoned the frame of their cart with the painted cloth they used for Noah's flood so that it hung low. Then they nailed canvas to the outside frame of the underbelly leaving one end open.

"In you go, my sweet." There was no time for arguing.

Four of the players lifted Margery and pocketed her between the canvas and the boards.

"Jesu save me!
Richard
!"Slung beneath the belly of the cart like kittens in a tabby near its time, she could only pray that the driver would choose his way with care.

"Courage! Is it likely to bruise you?"

"No, I think not, and there is air enough, but will it hold?"

"With God's help if you do not wriggle. If aught goes wrong, cut your way out after nightfall."

"But what about you?"

"The Devil looks after his own," he answered blithely, crossing himself for insurance, before he took the costume and transformed himself into a masked demon like the rest.

Armed with firecrackers, the mummers left the inn noisily, juggling and clowning along the street, teasing Adéle and Katherine, catching them up like floating planks upon a wave of misrule.

It was a misfortune that the officer in charge of the northern gate appeared to enjoy the petty power which his position gave him over lesser men. He swaggered towards the wagon with the anticipatory expression of a successful bully. But the chief player was ready, positioned behind him, mimicking the man's walk. The swelling crowd loved it. The officer glanced round and saw merely an idle demon. But as he drew near the cart and leaned forward to see inside, the crowd gave a shriek of laughter as the player unbuttoned his costume codpiece and a huge black and scarlet appendage sprang out. At least a yard long, it thwacked into the officer's rear. The man turned, outraged. The onlookers screamed with laughter.

Richard set off the first firecracker and then there were fireworks everywhere, hissing and exploding in amongst the kirtles and boots. The crowd enjoyed running amok. They surged forwards around the cart, the women, chaste and unchaste, screaming as the demons chased them with monstrous feathered pricks snaking in their hands.

Richard gave the nod to the driver and the cart creaked out slowly beneath the gateway in riotous company. He kissed his hand to the Levallois women and swung himself aboard, shaking with laughter as he hauled his costume appendage back into his codpiece. It was only when they were half a mile beyond the outlying villages and no armed horsemen had followed that he buried his head in his hands and thanked God that they had not all been arrested for disturbing the peace and alleged sodomy. He halted the cart where the player was waiting with the horses. His shaken wife was white-lipped as they drew her out like a babe from the straining canvas womb.

* * *

For a week they kept with the players. Richard, straw-hatted, played at carter, and the October sun, warm and mellow, lit them past orchards and harvested fields of golden stubble. Margery, her clothing masculine, her hair cropped again, barely left his side.

Fear of pursuit stalked them. They spoke little; she thought a great deal, trying to fathom his motives, hoping that it was more than his sense of duty that had caused him to winkle her out of the fortress. She had been found wanting; she knew that and realised that the foolish admission on their wedding night—that she was carrying the letters—had burned all hope of trust. Yet there was a kindness in the way his glance touched her that carried more than the heat of sunlight.

When he announced his decision to take the horses and to leave the wagons and strike westward, she knew again the cold fear and hugged the memory of the last few days to her.

"Why did we not flee to England?" she asked him, sated with rabbit meat, turning from watching the sparks of the wood fire dance into the darkness on that last evening.

"Because I could be hanged, drawn and quartered. The accusation of treachery has not been revoked by King Edward, and your father, when he hears from France, no doubt will let it stand." Somewhere in the forest, a wolf howled and she shivered.

"How did Ned talk you into that?" Margery whispered horrified, remembering the dismembered bodies at Southampton, and received the answer in his face of an over-generous gift. "Oh, sweet Heaven!"

It was what she desired but, dear Jesu, the cost. She wanted to protest her unworthiness, marvelling that she still could not plumb the shallowest depths of the man beside her.

But there was more: Richard idly prodded a stick into the embers. "When I was about nine or ten years old and page to your uncle, Lord Montague, I travelled in his retinue to Middleham and there was this child. She must have been about six years old, plumpish but not overly, with long hair loose down her back. I watched her rescue a little pup, the runt of a litter, from three or four boys twice her age and size. They had bagged the little creature and were threatening to throw it into the moat. This little girl just stepped into their midst, her small fists upon her non-existent hips, with a heap of courage and a belief she was right, and she grabbed the wriggling bag and cut the creature free, abusing them all the while. I, who had watched with amusement and not interfered, for they were older than I, then met her indignant gaze and she thrust the little dog into my arms. "Here, you have him," she said, "and take good care of him. He wants but kindness."

Margery frowned in amazement, her lips opening cherry width. "Richard?
That was you?
All those years ago. You never told me."

"At Warwick I saw her again years later and I remembered. She had grown beautiful. I wanted to go up to her and thrust the descendant of that pup into her arms and say, 'Here, I have done what you bid me, take him and my heart with it. I want but kindness.'"

Tears sparkled in his wife's eyes as she raised them to the dark dome of sky.

"And now we have wasted a great deal of time in quarrelling." He took her hand and turned it over, rubbing his fingers across her palm. "I did not want to say this because I thought that it would hurt you more to know, and if I am slain in battle..." He swallowed. She did not speak and he was compelled to falter onwards. "I was not going to tell you that I loved you, Margery. I thought it would be easier for you not to know if aught happened but I have learned that my judgment may be green in these matters. Am I right?"

Her smile was watery like a rainbow sky, her voice husky. "Yes, green as grass, so say it, Richard Huddleston."

"I have made many mistakes, Margery, but I know that I am not wrong in loving you."

The firelight danced upon the kind lines of his face as she reached out her hand and touched his cheek.

"In love, sir, as in death, all of us are equal." She eased him to face her and knelt before him, holding his hands in hers. "Before Almighty God, I take you Richard Huddleston in love and loyalty until death and I hereby plight you my troth." She stretched upwards and kissed his mouth. "Yes?"

"Yes."

* * *

Richard's sense of being followed grew as they left the players and journeyed westwards now with greater speed. Next day, they sheltered unseen in a wayside copse to watch who came behind them, but only a half-dozen toasted pilgrims, returning in scallop shell tabards from Compostela, were noteworthy. The carriers, messengers and two merchants with an escort of armed men were not unusual wayfarers.

"Something gnaws at me," muttered Richard. "I think you and I should go across country."

"Without a guide but your sense of direction, so be it. But surely, we shall be more remarked if seen away from the highway, and is not the forest as perilous for but two of us?"

He nodded tight-lipped. "For a few miles only, then we will return to this road again."

He had an unfailing judgment in direction, and an hour later he led her back onto the highway. But a mile further, they rounded a forested bend and saw the merchants and armed men drawn up ahead.

With a muttered oath, Richard grabbed both reins and hauled them off the road, hoping no one had seen them. "I knew it. Come on!"

He led her through the wood to higher ground and halted, listening. With growing fear, Margery heard their pursuers shouting in the valley. The pound of hooves came up the hill towards them.

"Dear God, not now we have come so far," she gasped, swiftly unstrapping the purse. "Here, Richard, separate. Go on to Burgundy without me. This is worth two kingdoms."

He thrust it into his doublet and thwacked her horse, sending it hurtling between the trees and down the other side of the hill. She had little choice but to cling on, bent over the saddle, frantic as the branches lashed and whipped her. She heard him close behind her and then she came hard upon a river. It was too deep to ford. She tried to force her mount into the water but it baulked and wheeled.

Richard had unsheathed his sword and turned his horse. She drew hers too, knowing she had the skill to parry but not the strength to thrust. Half a score of men-at-arms rode at them and ahead of them was Errour.

"Go, Richard!" she cried in despair but he tossed weapons from palm to palm and sent his dagger hurtling into the nearest man's throat. Then they were beset in earnest. Two of them attacked him on either side while a third rode in on Margery. Then suddenly other horsemen hurtled from the forest, the pilgrims.

It was over swifter than it takes a beggar to drink a yard of ale. The pilgrims spared not one of the King's men, drawing their daggers across the survivors' throats and would have slain the dog, had Richard not roared in fury. Every man froze. The air was still except for the panting of the horses and the buzz of flies drawn already by the smell of blood.

Margery and Richard were surrounded.

"I thank you,
messieurs
." Richard wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve but he neither sheathed his sword nor relaxed his vigilance. Margery, trembling, knew then they must be
écorcheurs
bent on ransom.

"The Demoiselle Neville?" the leader asked, saluting Margery.

Richard growled in surprise. "Madame Huddleston!" he snapped but the man took no notice. They could see now by the brightness of his grin that his tan was walnut juice.

"Monseigneur de Commynes sends you greetings, demoiselle. We are here to see you safe to Burgundy."

Chapter 28