The Rose of York (11 page)

Edward grabbed a goblet from a fair-haired girl and upended the cup. He bent and kissed her full on the lips, fondling a breast in one hand. Then he released the girl and draped an arm around Richard’s shoulder. “Do you know what this place is?”

Richard gulped. “A brothel?” He’d heard the palace whispers.

“Aye,” laughed Edward. “The best in the county. Isn’t it, Will?”

Will Hastings grinned.

Edward led Richard to a small raised platform that served as a dais, propped his long elegant bulk on a brocade pallet, and patted the space beside him. Richard sat down, and Hastings took a seat on Edward’s other side. “We’ve prepared a show for you, Dickon. Never will you forget this night, little brother.”

He clapped his hands. Half-nude girls brought in wine, fruits and sweet tarts, and minstrels struck up a tune from their dark corner. A red curtain parted and a group of dancing girls entered. Like the others, these were barefooted and bare-breasted. Bodies weaving, hips swaying to the beat of drums and tambourines, they danced to the high melodic notes of the haunting flute. A delightful shiver ran through Richard at their writhing motions and he felt that giddy pleasure which had lately come to him when his eyes met Anne’s, but this time the blood was surging through his veins like a thundering river. He glanced at Edward and Will Hastings. Their faces were flushed as they stuffed their mouths with sweetmeats, and they were clapping loudly, their cries of approval growing lustier with drink. He settled back proudly.

Two men and another girl joined the group. The men were bare-chested and he noted with surprise that though they wore tights, an opening between the legs exposed their manhood. The girl set the silk cushion she carried down on the floor and stretched out gracefully. Moving to the rhythm of the music, they entwined limbs in a pantomime that left Richard breathless.

When the dance was over, the bearded woman made her way past the flickering candles to the dais. “My lords, all is prepared.”

Laughing and drinking from a flagon, Edward and Hastings stumbled after her. Richard followed, swaggering. In a small chamber adorned in black and red, a woman sat on a bed playing a stringed instrument. Richard’s jaw fell open and his knees went weak. She was completely nude.

“My lord King, I would rise but I know you prefer me in bed,” she smiled.

Edward laughed. “You’ve wit to match your charm. ’Tis what I love about my little Maud…” He broke off, interrupted by a moan from the curtained alcove in the corner of the room.

“She awaits, my lord Hastings,” the bearded woman smiled. She turned to Richard. “My lord of Gloucester, this is Maggie.” She led a naked maiden forward to Richard. The girl was young, pretty, with small pink nipples that kindled feelings of fire. Maggie smiled and the bearded woman withdrew with a bow.

“Go with Hastings, Dickon,” Edward said. “I don’t like to be watched, but he does.”

Will Hastings pushed back the curtain and Richard moved to the alcove. He halted abruptly, scarcely aware of Maggie’s hands stroking his thigh. A young girl lay naked on a table. She was not much older than Anne and he saw with shock that her wrists were tied to the bed. Desperate to free herself, she moaned as she thrashed, her eyes as terrified as a wounded deer’s. Richard jerked around to look at Hastings.

“She’s naught but a village girl,” Hastings said thickly, pulling off his shirt and casting it aside. “They always fear it the first time, for they know not what pleasure awaits.”

He looked strange, Richard thought, with his red face and glazed eyes, puffing like a winded stag. As though she sensed an ally, the girl twisted her head and fixed her eyes on Richard. They were beseeching, bewildered eyes that held a strange, unfocused expression. “M-My lord!” she whispered hoarsely, “Ss-save me—I b-beg you…”

She not only stuttered, but her words were unclear, half-formed, as though she had difficulty uttering them, and Richard didn’t comprehend immediately. Then realisation came. The girl had been abducted and drugged, to be ravished by a lord! The warmth of desire vanished, drowned by the sudden lurch of his stomach and the bitter taste of bile that rose in his throat. He thrust Maggie from him and backed away.

The girl fought Hastings with her legs but he pinned her down, heaved his body into hers and began to grunt. Her back arched. She let out a shrill cry. The sound, blood-curdling and filled with terror, washed over Richard in chilling waves. Not since Ludlow had he heard such a scream, such a desperate, tormented scream. He closed his eyes, averted his face. With a sick relief, he realised that the cries had eased.

When he opened his eyes again, the bearded woman was clamping a damp cloth over the maiden’s nose. Slowly the agonised movements stilled, the muffled cries hushed. The woman stole away. Hasting’s body shook with spasms but the girl lay deadly still.

Richard’s gaze fixed on the blood oozing down the girl’s thighs. His stomach gave another lurch. Blindly he ran out of the alcove, past Edward, who never glanced up, through the empty red hall, down the narrow staircase. Unable to restrain himself any longer, he turned to the wall and retched. Leaning his head against the wood door, he gasped for breath and passed a hand over his face to banish the obscene image of Hastings thrusting with mounting pleasure.

Edward was right. Never would he forget this night.

~ * * * ~

“A storm was coming, but the winds were still.”

Richard didn’t return to the brothel again, though Edward and Hastings lingered there for the next several nights. Sullen and miserable, he pondered the fate of the maid who’d had no one to speak for her. She’d died that night, overdosed by opium administered by the bearded lady. To Hastings, who’d done the same before, it was a small matter, soon forgotten. Edward, too, regarded it lightly, but in Richard’s heart, the girl’s fate festered.
I should have done something
, he thought;
I should have helped her
.

So ran Richard’s thoughts as they rode to Pontefract Castle.

It troubled him more than he cared to admit that Edward had taken the girl’s death so lightly. He could have saved her; he could have stopped Will Hastings.
But Edward was in a different room
, Richard argued with himself.
He didn’t know what was going on. By the time he found out, it was too late. What good would it do to chastise Hastings then? Even if it were not the first time a girl Hastings abducted had died this way, Edward wouldn’t blame his friend. He was too loyal. He always believed the best of others, and he always gave them the benefit of the doubt. Especially those he loved.

Still, nagged a small voice in his head, he wished Edward had helped her. As for Will Hastings, he’d never see him again with the same eyes. Merely to be near him caused discomfort. He longed to be with John Neville. John, who was as different from Hastings as the North was from London.

When they finally arrived at Pontefract, it was too late for Richard to see battle. While Edward and Hastings had been whoring at Leicester, John had vanquished the Lancastrians.

“We crushed Somerset’s forces at Hexham, Sire!” John informed Edward on bended knee. “Two dozen leaders were captured and executed by sentence of the Constable, John Tiptoft, the Earl of Worcester.”

“And Somerset?” Edward demanded.

“I personally had him executed on the spot, my Liege.” John hesitated, debating whether to tell Edward of the heated argument he’d had with Tiptoft, who had wished to impale Somerset’s men on stakes in the Byzantine manner. He decided on silence. Though cruelty warped Tiptoft’s character with a viciousness he’d not thought possible in a sane man, Edward favoured him, and it was wise to tread warily where favourites were concerned. “Holy Harry fled so quickly, he left his crown behind.” He held out Henry’s golden circlet.

Roaring with laughter, Edward took it. “Poor Henry, always losing his crown.” He raised John to his feet and held him by the shoulders. “Such a splendid service deserves a splendid reward… My fair cousin, John, Lord of Montagu, I grant you the earldom of Northumberland. We shall invest you at York in a proper ceremony on Trinity Sunday.”

Joy exploded in John’s breast. He dropped to his knees.
Earl of Northumberland
, he whispered silently in his heart, bowing his head to hide the happiness that choked him.
Earl of Northumberland!

With the princely income of the earldom, he’d move his family from the draughty manor house that had been his father’s wedding gift into a spacious castle. Isobel would have servants; she would embroider tapestries instead of darning robes. Their daughters would make good marriages. All was changed. All was now possible. He had not failed his family.

“Sire,” he managed. “Thank you.”

~*~

In June Richard returned to Middleham, anxious to see Anne. But only the Countess stood before the Keep, dressed in drab grey, looking older than he remembered.

“My lady, what has happened?”

“Anne has been sorely ill, Dickon. She caught the ague and her neck swelled so… I barely recognised my own child. But she is recovering, thanks to the Holy Virgin. ’Tis a miracle.”

Richard heaved a sigh of relief. He had been struck with fear for a moment, but there was no cause for concern. As the youngest of twelve children, he himself had been so sickly at times that he hadn’t been expected to survive, and whenever the steward of Fotheringhay Castle had written his parents, he’d always included a postscript: “Richard liveth yet.” Now he was hardy as a young oak. In time, Anne would outgrow her weakness, as he had done. “May I see her?”

“Later, perhaps. She’s resting.”

Richard followed her upstairs into the hall. That Warwick, tough as he was, should beget two frail daughters was a source of constant amazement to all. “And my Lord of Warwick, how fares he?”

The Countess led him to a window seat. She clasped her hands together nervously. “Dickon… I must tell you, I fear all is not well between your gracious brother and my Lord of Warwick. My lord husband made a fine arrangement with the French for their Princess Bona of Savoy, and with Castile for the hand of Princess Isabella. The King has only to choose, and he will not.”

“But there’s much to be gained from an alliance with Louis XI,” Richard exclaimed.

“I know, my lord… I know,” said the Countess. “There is also another matter…” She bit her lip, then rushed on. “Thrice now my lord has asked for your hand in marriage to our Anne, and thrice the King has refused it, as he has refused George’s request to marry Bella.”

A suffocating sensation tightened Richard’s throat. It had not occurred to him that Edward knew about his feelings for Anne. Why was he against the match? Age couldn’t be a factor. The Earl of Warwick and his Countess were not much older when they’d wed. The blood of Edward III ran in Anne’s veins as it did in his own, and she was heiress to the richest, most powerful magnate in England. Their marriage would only strengthen the Yorkist bond. So
why
?

Something was wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong.

~ * * * ~

“It is the little rift within the lute
That by and by will make the music mute.”

Never will I forget this moment
, thought Richard.
Never, so long as I live
. He stared at Edward, stunned, unable to comprehend what he had just heard. The moment was accompanied by a strange silence, a kind of thundering lull during which a shadow seemed to steal forward, casting an ominous darkness over all who sat around that council table in Reading Abbey. Sick with dread, he saw the fear he felt reflected on everyone’s face. No one could believe it. They all sat still as alabaster. What did it mean for them, and for the realm, that Edward had chosen a wife for himself and married her in secret on May Day? John, in particular, had taken the announcement hard.
He looks
, thought Richard,
as if his heart is frozen in his chest
.

Horrified, stunned, and swept with fear, John himself felt as if a hand had closed around his throat, and for a moment he could not breathe. He knew his brother’s fierce pride; he knew how hard Warwick had laboured to secure an alliance with the French, and how heavily his pride relied on that success. The depth of Edward’s own pride was only just becoming apparent. The boy had grown into a man testing his power. And these two mighty forces had just collided.