The Rose of York (40 page)

Drawn from her lethargy, she had turned her eyes on him. At that instant, he spilt his soup. The help scurried to clean up the mess, and in the commotion that ensued, the minstrel had whispered, “Bella begs a token!” She’d slipped him all that remained of her past life, Richard’s silver ring. Her heart pounding, she had lain awake every night expecting rescue. But nothing happened. The days passed. No one came for her.

She knew now that no one would come. It had been a hoax. She closed her eyes.

“Stir, wench, stir!” commanded the head cook. “How many times do I have to tell ye, this is not a charity house? Ye have to earn your keep here or ye’ll be out on the streets, m’dear! And what then, I ask ye? What then?”

Anne stirred harder, not for fear of being put out, but to please the head cook. It was his favourite speech, no doubt because it was his own worst fear. Anne had heard it so many times, it echoed even in her sleep; but he meant well, the old man. His bray was worse than his nip and there was kindness in him. He had never taken the strap to any of the kitchen women, and when she was ailing he always sent her a bowl of soup and mead. He had shown kindness in other ways. The first time she’d been given the task of plucking out feathers and hacking at the bodies of little birds snared for dinner, she had swooned. She expected a whipping when she recovered, but the head cook merely shook his head and assigned her to other duties.

Because he treated her gently, she thought he knew her identity, then realised that wasn’t so. To him she was merely Nan, an orphan with an unsound mind who gave herself airs and thought herself a lady, and whom the old couple who owned the house had taken in for pity’s sake. That was what the help had been told, she’d learned; and it explained her differences aptly. She considered George clever to have thought of it.

Anne had suffered reversals of fortune in her sixteen years, but not since France had she felt so alone. They mocked her speech, these folk she barely understood, and her manners, which they took for affectation. At mealtimes they’d jab one another with their elbows and not let her forget how she had once asked for the salt reserved for the nobly born. When she worked the pulleys, raising and lowering heavy sacks of grain, and straightened to rub her aching back, they snickered, “A little harder than embroidery, isn’t it, me lady?” Once, she’d inquired where the privy was. A young lass had led her up the kitchen stairs to a corner of a dirt courtyard, behind the dovecote. “Here’s the ‘privy,’ mistress,” she’d giggled with a mock curtsy. On her return, another girl had asked, “Find the ‘privy’ to y’er satisfaction,
mistress
?” It was her privy Anne missed most, with its wooden seat, window and curtains that ruffled in the breeze, and the little shelf where a candle always burned brightly and a jug of wildflowers stood in welcome. Even in winter, when the cold wind whistled through the narrow slits, it was a pleasant place.

Anne bore them no ill will, for she could dream of rescue, while they were trapped in this dread existence. And though her ways gave them cause for jest, their teasing evidenced more disbelief than cruelty. For the most part, they let her alone. The loneliness would have been acute were it not for the company of two dogs and three cats who shared the kitchen and generously offered their furry warmth in the chill of the night.

But Anne also learned things that kept her up at night, weeping. On his way home from work through the forest, the young brother of the kindly head cook had come upon an injured doe. Mortally wounded by an arrow, she’d moaned in agony while a fox feasted on her stomach. The boy had chased off the fox and put the doe out of her misery. But he was caught in the act. No one believed him, and the penalty for pouching was a merciless death.

Tears stung Anne’s eyes as she stirred the salt-beef in the steaming cauldron. Life was hard, sometimes unbearable. For her it was devoid of hope now, devoid of regrets. Devoid of past and future and all that had once mattered. She was no longer Lady Anne Neville, Kingmaker’s daughter, but a shadow worn down by fatigue, slipping deeper into oblivion. Sleep was all she wanted. The morning that had dawned too soon with carrying buckets of water from the well-pump would continue with the scrubbing of endless streams of tankards and greasy pots, the sweeping of floors, and the emptying of buckets of refuse until it all began anew for supper. Only sleep ended the hard pace of day.

Sleep, when she sank mercifully onto her pallet in the loft and covered herself with the hay that served as her blanket. Blessed, blessed sleep…

~ * * * ~

“Here, by God’s grace, is the one voice for me.”

The March twilight softened the icy Thames with a touch of violet. The new year of 1472 had chimed, and soon it would be Easter, yet Anne was still missing. Patience had never been Richard’s strength, and waiting for news was unbearable. The twilight hour was especially hard, since twilight with its magical reflections and tender beauty seemed made for lovers. Even so, Richard knew the night it ushered would be worse. Since Anne’s disappearance he had slept fitfully and his dreams were troubled. Now the demon of his childhood had a face, and it was George.
You’ll never find Anne!
George would sneer maliciously.
You’re my brother; why are you doing this?
Richard would plead. Then George would throw his head back and laugh.
You’re not my brother! You’re no Plantagenet! The Duke of York was not thy father!

Richard always awoke from these nightmares drenched in sweat. Once he might have reached for his lute but now music only served to underscore his pain, for life itself felt like a long dolorous melody, heavy with pounding chords. Dawn brought a measure of relief, but though he willed himself to concentrate on the work which filled his days, Anne was never far from his thoughts. She would intrude at odd moments, stop him in the middle of a task, halt him in mid-sentence.

As now.

He turned back to his scribe to resume dictation of a letter regarding the Earl of Oxford’s estates, which Edward had recently conferred on him, but before he could finish, he was interrupted by a knock at the open door. It was Richard Ratcliffe, new in his service since Barnet. Ratcliffe had fought valiantly for Warwick, and Richard, who had affection for the men of the North, particularly those who had loved Warwick and John, had taken him under his protection. He was but a few years older, handsome, with broad shoulders and a nobly carved countenance, and he exuded a vigorous energy. Ratcliffe had lost no time winning Richard’s trust, for he was a man of honour and intellect, and he had displayed that quality Richard valued above all else: Loyalty.

“A messenger, my lord. I told him you couldn’t be disturbed. He said to give you this…” Ratcliffe presented Richard with a small ring.

Richard’s hand shook as he took the silver circle of entwined laurel leaves. He couldn’t breathe or think for the tumult in his head, and he stared at it incredulously, swept with both joy and fear. “Send him in. Make haste,” he managed, unable to lift his voice above a whisper.

A moment later a ginger-haired lad of about fourteen tumbled in and fell at his feet. “Y’er Grace, my message’s for ye alone.”

Richard motioned with his hand and the room cleared. “Speak!”

“M’lord, I’m ordered to tell Y’er Grace this…” He paused to draw a deep breath. “The lady ye be seeking’s in the kitchen o’ a home in Cheapside.” Clearly, the importance of his message was not lost on him for he concentrated on the words as if he had been practising.

“Kitchen?”

“I’m ordered to tell Y’er Grace she’s been disguised as a scullery-maid, M’lordship.”

Richard stared at him, mouth agape.

“I know the house and can guide ye to it, Y’er Lord—I mean Me Grace—but I’m ordered to tell ye first some important things afore we go.”

Richard swallowed hard. This was unbelievable! Impossible! Anne, a scullery-maid in someone’s kitchen all these months?
Six months…

Still on his knees, the youth had fallen silent, awaiting Richard’s response. Forcing his attention back to the boy, Richard motioned him to rise and the boy clambered to his feet. “Go on!” he barked, horror of Anne’s situation and concern for her safety making his tone harsh.

“The lady who sends ye this ring greets ye well, Y’er Lordship, and bids ye to follow her instructions so no one finds out who she be…”

As the lad spoke, Richard struggled to absorb what he said, but there was such a shaking in his chest that he could barely follow the words. His mind leapt from thought to thought: Bella had found Anne, God be thanked! But how could George be guilty of such a deed? His own brother, such a heinous, foul deed? Anne, so delicate and frail, toiling as a scullery maid! Well might such labour have killed her…

“Well might she have died!” he blurted out, surprising himself. He slammed a clenched fist into his hand and bit his lip to crush the thought that followed: George might have hoped for such an end! He cursed, and kicked at a table, which fell over with a crash, scattering nuts from a silver bowl over the tiled floor. George be damned to Hell! Fair George—whom he had loved, who had held his hand at Ludlow and urged him not to fear, who had proudly sworn to protect him from Marguerite’s rampaging troops and comforted him in Bruges—how could that George have grown into such an evil, loathsome creature?

Richard gave a bitter cry.

“M’lord, are ye all right?” the boy inquired in a frightened voice.

Unaware he had uttered any sound, Richard stared at him blankly.

“Ye said something, Y’er Lordship,” the youth reminded him.

“How is she?” Richard shouted as though the boy were deaf. The lad looked at him in confusion. Richard grabbed him roughly by his jerkin. “Have you seen her?” he yelled in a panic. “Do you know how she is? Where’s your tongue? Speak, boy!”

“Seen her, M’lordship?—I mean, Y’er Lordship…” Suddenly realising the Duke meant the lady who had been sent to the kitchens, and not the grand lady who had come to his father’s cloth shop and hired him for the mission, he gulped, “My Grace, I’ve not seen her. There’s been ne’er a word on her, save that she’s alive.”

Richard released his hold, went to the door, flung it open. “Miles, Ratcliffe, make haste! Don your harness, round up men! We ride to Cheapside!”

~*~

With a strong party of armed horsemen bearing torches, Richard galloped through the narrow London streets, his fierce expression serving as forcefully as his men’s thundering hoofs to cut a wide swath through the rowdy crowds. The boy took them to Lombard Street and pointed to a high, narrow half-timbered house. “Here it be, Lordship!”

Richard dismounted. Ratcliffe pounded on the door. A wooden peephole opened and a frightened eye looked out. “Open in the name of the King!” cried Ratcliffe.

“That’s not the King, he’s not near tall enough,” came the answer.

“You shameless lackey—this is His Grace Richard, Duke of Gloucester, here on royal business! Open, or face the consequences!”

The door was cracked open. Richard slammed it back. His expression dark as a thundercloud, he pushed past the frightened servants into the main hall. It was empty and dim, lit by only a single torch. “Where is she?” he bellowed to no one, and everyone. A grey-haired man and a matronly woman in a wimple appeared from an adjacent parlour. The man looked at Richard’s sumptuous clothes and the jewelled boar insignia on his velvet hat, blanched and gave an involuntary cry; the woman gasped and turned to flee.

“Seize them!” Richard cried. Two men at arms grabbed the man and wife, and twisting the man’s elbow behind him, shoved him forward to Richard.

“Where is she?” he demanded. “Where are your kitchens?”

The woman began to cry. The man begged, “I pray ye, m’lord…”

“Save your prayers, old man! And your tears, woman! As Heaven is my witness, if you’ve hurt a hair on her head, you shall have need of them. Where are the kitchens?”

“M’lord Duke,” the man cried, “We did’na have a say in the matter—we…”