The Rose of York: Crown of Destiny (7 page)

Anne jerked back her head and looked at him wide-eyed.

“There has been a prophecy…” Richard hesitated. “…that the King will be succeeded by one whose name begins with the letter G.”

George
. Anne held her breath.

“The prophecy has unsettled Edward. One of George’s servants was executed three days ago for trying to procure the King’s death by sorcery.”

“He was innocent, too,” Anne whispered. “The Woodvilles.”

“Aye, the Woodvilles drove Edward to it… They’ve been plotting George’s downfall for a long time, and with George’s own help they’re succeeding.”

She closed her eyes on a breath. Why wouldn’t the past stay buried? Like an ugly tune that ended and returned to the beginning to start over, the past kept repeating itself. “You had a messenger today,” she said, her voice a bare whisper. Last year they had returned from the joyful Corpus Christi celebrations in York to a waiting messenger and the news that her uncle was dying. Yesterday they had attended those same ceremonies. In the outpouring of love and merriment around her, she’d managed to forget her sorrows for a few hours, but from the moment she’d espied the Sun in Splendour emblem of the royal messenger, she had felt unsettled. She’d persuaded herself that it was only fatigue. After all, they had celebrated for two full days and walked through the streets for hours. Now she had to face the truth. That emblem had always meant trouble. For her father, and for Richard.

Richard nodded grimly. “That’s when I realised I could no longer keep all this from you. The messenger bore evil tidings, Anne.” His jaw clenched. When he spoke again, his voice was thick, unsteady. “George has been charged with treason and taken to the Tower.”

~*^*~

Chapter 7

“O brother… woe is me!”

Richard’s pleas to Edward to pardon George were singularly unsuccessful. Though his mother journeyed from her castle at Berkhampsted to add her voice to his, Edward remained curiously impervious to their entreaties. Richard was unable to comprehend his intransigence. Edward yielded neither to logic nor brotherly love, not even to their mother’s anger and condemnation. As he strode with Edward through the cloisters of Westminster Abbey on an overcast September morning before he departed for Middleham, Richard pressed his brother one last time. An unseasonably cold wind blew their cloaks about their legs and the silent arches threw long dark shadows across the stone walk. Richard shivered from the cold, but as much from the unease that held him in its grip.

“You’ve always pardoned George’s treasons; what is different this time?”

“The prophecy,” said Edward. “That ‘G’ will rule after me. It will not happen, by God!”

“Once there was another prophecy. It said your sons would never rule and your daughter Elizabeth would be Queen in their stead. Have you forgotten? That also troubled you. They cannot both be true.”

“Nevertheless, I am decided.”

“God’s curse, Edward!” Richard blurted, halting in his steps. “What has come over you? Have you gone mad? We’re talking about our
brother
.”

“A brother who’s spent his life wronging us. Why do you persist in your pleas? Of us both, you have more cause to hate him than even I.”

“Whatever his sins, he’s our brother. You can’t live with his blood on your hands. I beseech you, for the love you bear me, forgive him.” He looked up desperately into Edward’s resistant face. A muscle quivered at Edward’s jaw and his mouth was clamped so tightly shut, it resembled a blade. The strain of the past months had taken a harsh toll. Richard thought of a lyre and a string pulled so taut that it would surely break. He drew a sharp inward breath. “Something is different this time… ’Tis not the prophecy that impels you, is it?”

Silence.

A gust of wind shrieked along the cloister, tore at their mantles, and was gone. All was still again except for the cawing of ravens. Richard stood transfixed, unable to drag his gaze from Edward’s face. It was as if Edward were aging before his eyes, as if the mask that hid the true set of his features was now melting away. He was shrinking, his face growing more pinched and haggard as, line by line, pain etched itself deeper into the creases around his eyes, the grooves around his mouth.

“It must be done!” Edward cried out suddenly, his voice quivering in a way that Richard had never heard before. He pressed his hand to his brow, and dropped it, exposing eyes filled with agony. “I have no choice.”

A sudden, terrible realisation struck Richard. He stared at Edward in speechless horror, his mind reeling.
It is not the prophecy that compels Edward. It is Bess Woodville
. This foul deed had her seal on it. She had found a way to force Edward to kill his own brother! He clenched his fists against the revulsion that flooded his body.

Richard returned to Middleham in a despondent mood. The respite proved brief. Soon he and Anne had to return to Westminster to attend the Christmas festivities, which were to be crowned by a royal wedding. Finding himself strangely in need of a connection with his dead cousin, John, he borrowed Thomas Gower away from young George Neville for the journey. John’s faithful squire was now squire to John’s son, and not only had he rendered long and faithful service to the Nevilles, but he was a solid man, inherently dependable and, at forty-six, the same age John would have been, had he lived. With his carved features, kindly eyes, and reserved temperament, Richard found in him a comforting sense of John’s own presence.

Spirits were high at the Woodville court. Gaiety was everywhere. With Edward, though, Richard knew it was forced, because he’d glimpsed his soul that day in the cloisters and knew that what Edward did, he did in spite of himself—not that the knowledge made it easier to bear. With a gloom and foreboding unmatched since the days of civil war, Richard ushered in the New Year of 1478 at Windsor, his hand clasped tightly in Anne’s.

Anne shared Richard’s mood. Not only did court bring back wrenching memories, but the Queen and her ilk kept looking at her and whispering. She had overheard one of Bess’s sister’s remark: “How has she survived such storms when she looks as if the next breeze will carry her off?”

“Do not fool yourself,” Bess Woodville had replied. “The tiny red finch, barely a spark of life and weighing scarcely more than a feather, is not swept away by the merciless winds of winter.”

Then they had laughed.

No, there was nothing redeeming about court, not a moment she enjoyed. Her head throbbed most of the time and sleep was fitful. It didn’t help that she worried about Richard, whose misery struck at her heart. A heavy burden of guilt weighed on his spirits for participating in a celebration that gave the Woodvilles cause to rejoice when his own brother lay confined to the dark of the Tower.

Early on the morning of the wedding day, Richard escaped the Woodvilles and slipped out to St. Stephen’s Chapel. The January morning was bitter cold and a rare drift of snow swept the cloisters. In the side chapel of Our Lady of the Pew, he stood alone, admiring the lofty, narrow nave, the great columns gilded by thousands of leaves of gold and silver foil. Sunlight played on the cold, brilliantly coloured glass, sending darts of cobalt blues, violets, oranges, and yellows through the gloom. The peace which had eluded him since his arrival at court found him now. He knelt and murmured a prayer for George.

No sooner had he risen than a door clanged and footsteps sounded on the stone. His cousin Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, strode up jauntily. “We must have had the same idea, Dickon—to get away from Woodvilles for a spell!” With a twinkle in his eyes, Harry chuckled, “’Tis the only place not infested with them, eh? Not enough gold around, I suppose…” He surveyed the nave festooned with pine branches and greenery. Richard almost smiled in spite of himself.

“Yet even this dull church has its uses. Behold the holy Woodville altar!” Harry jerked his head in its direction. “Another heir, another sacrifice. Nevertheless, the child is blessed, isn’t she? She’s too young to understand the ill turn her life has taken. Ah, well, so it goes…” He sauntered off, his gem-encrusted hat and claret doublet flashing like a beacon in the subdued light of the nave.

Richard watched with soft eyes. He liked his cousin. Their mothers were sisters, but the dukes of Buckingham had been Lancastrians and had fought for Marguerite d’Anjou. After Ludlow, when Richard and his mother became prisoners of Harry’s father, he and his little cousin had played many a ball game together. Richard had always been struck by the resemblance between his cousin Harry and his brother George. Both were the same age; both had the same golden curls, the same easy charm and love of fine clothes, and the same loathing of Woodvilles. The young Duke of Buckingham, one of the richest and most noble heirs in the land, had been snatched up by the low-born Queen at the age of eleven and married off to her sister, Catherine, against his will. Harry had never forgiven Bess Woodville for that. Richard understood his enmity.

The wedding service was finally over and the four-year-old prince, Richard of York, Richard’s own namesake, was wed to the greatest heiress in the land, six-year-old Anne Mowbray, daughter of the dead Duke of Norfolk. Richard’s sole pleasure in the ceremony was an act of charity he performed at his own request. Dipping into a basin of gold coins, he scattered them among the crowds gathered at the chapel doors. Then he dutifully escorted the child-bride into the Painted Chamber for her wedding banquet.

Fragrant ambergris scented the air and the floor was strewn with dried rose petals and violets as Richard led Anne Mowbray to the head table and lifted her into her chair beside her husband. A handsome child, little Richard had been scrubbed until he gleamed and he looked very fine in his white silk hose, gold shoes, and white cloth of gold doublet sewn with pearls and diamonds. His nephew was only a year older than his own Ned and he bore Richard’s name, yet Richard felt no affinity with the child. His milk-white complexion and pale hair stamped him too clearly as a Woodville. With a stiff bow, he withdrew to take his own place at the end of the table, beside Anne.

She gave him a faint smile and pressed his hand as he sat down. He could use comfort. The hall glittered with candles and torches, and in their light the rich coloured wall murals glimmered much as they had years ago when the Irish Earl of Desmond had made his fatal visit to England. At that banquet, the charming earl had attracted the enmity of the Queen, and soon afterwards, he and his two little boys, mere babes at six and eight years old, were sent to the block. Well did Richard remember that night. The same unease gripped him now.

He watched the festivities with glazed eyes, his thoughts on George a short distance upriver, alone in the Tower. He upended his cup, drained the fine Gascon wine in a single draught, and held the cup out to a servant for refill. He stabbed a slice of roasted boar with his dagger, brought it to his mouth, then set it back on the golden trencher. He couldn’t eat; his stomach was clenched tight. He glanced around the room wretchedly.

It was a merry group that feasted and revelled in the flowing wine as servants brought hundreds of silver platters of venison, peacock, and swan to their banquet tables. The din of their conversation and raucous laughter resounded through the hall. He noted with bitterness that Bess Woodville herself was in high form that night. Her smile was expansive; her jewels larger and more plentiful than ever before. Louis’s fifty-thousand crowns were clearly in evidence. Ever since the Treaty of Picquigny, Edward’s court had grown lavish. Behind Bess Woodville and all around the hall, chests of silver-and gold-plate glittered coldly in the torchlight. Richard remembered a comment he’d overheard Bess make to Edward years earlier: “A country’s wealth is in its plate, is it not?”

“Aye,” Edward had replied, eyeing her with affectionate amusement.

“And the more plate, the more respect. So we must always display our plate in plenty.”

She must have displayed the entire treasury
, Richard thought dryly.

Bugles announced the dessert course. There was blancmanger, jellies, plum pudding, and a grand marchpane subtlety. Carried in by four knights, it was in the form of a massive throne with the back and the armrests embossed with fleur-de-lis. Eight-year-old Princess Elizabeth was lifted up into it and seemed a tiny feather in the chair as she was carried about the hall to cheers and applause. Afterwards a knight carved the French throne into edible portions with his sword and servers bore them to the guests.

Richard’s mouth curled with distaste. He doubted the marriage would ever happen, though Edward still believed Louis to be a man of his word.

A troubadour arrived to sing of a knight who courts a shepherd girl. The jewelled guests dissolved into laughter at the ridiculous twists of the tale, but Richard was lost in his own thoughts. Next came a dancing bear. He watched her antics and turned to gaze at Edward, who was roaring with laughter.
It wouldn’t be so easy for Edward to leap across the table to dance with the bear now as he did at Middleham years ago
, Richard thought. Edward had grown fat. His richly embroidered flowing robe of blue satin with its ample fur-lined sleeves hid his bulk well, but nothing could hide his bloated face. Along his nose ran a fine web of tiny red and purple veins, and beneath his puffy eyelids his eyes were like arrow-slits. Layers of sagging fat buried the once elegant cheekbones and strong jaw that had given definition to his good looks. As for his complexion, he had traded the bronze that comes with too much sun for the florid hue that comes with too much wine. Richard’s gaze passed from his brother to the woman sitting next to him. The woman responsible.

Bess Woodville no longer smiled. Cold and haughty, she sat with her back rigid, her passionless green eyes watching everything, missing nothing. Her famous beauty, which Richard had never appreciated, had dulled with age and prolific childbearing. Since 1466 she had given birth every two years, providing Edward with five daughters and two sons. The Woodvilles were breeders, that much had to be said for them.