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  “Except for Marguerite d’Anjou and Bess Woodville, women have no part in the troubles caused by men,” said Richard dully.

  “Traitors must be crushed, my lord. Make an example of them—or they’ll breed like maggots and eat you alive!”

  “No doubt you’re right, Ashton, but that is not my way.” He turned listless eyes on his secretary. “Kendall, issue commissions of array to the men appointed commissioners last May. They are to order my subjects to be ready to resist the rebels.”

  Howard shook his silvery head. “’Tis too early, my lord. Tudor can’t launch another invasion ’till spring. There’s time yet. The realm’s weary of summonses to arms and talk of war. The Christmas season’s a’coming—best not to remind them that peace is not at hand. Besides, there’s no money.” A loud murmur of assent greeted this response.

  “What am I to do until then?” Richard exploded suddenly. Sit and watch Anne die? Unable to choke back the anguish that threatened his composure, he swivelled on his heel and left the room.

  His councillors stared after him, stunned at his outburst which had had no prompting.

  ~ * ~

  Chapter 18

  “And I, the last, go forth companionless

  And the days darken round me.”

  The royal apartments teemed with as many people and as much business as Richard’s council chamber. Anne was directing the preparations for the Christmas celebrations from bed. While Roland slept beside her, Elizabeth and the Master of the Wardrobe stood on either side, surrounded by servants who undraped fabric for her inspection. There were cloths of gold and tissue of silver, and silks and damasks of every hue—purples, crimsons, greens, blues, and apricot. She was nodding assent to a bolt of violet tissue when Richard walked in. The Master of the Wardrobe gathered up his fabrics and meinie and withdrew with a bow. Elizabeth blushed, curtsied and, avoiding his eyes, rushed past him.

  “Stay, Elizabeth—” Anne called out, but Elizabeth was already gone. “She’s so shy… Not at all like her mother.” A coughing fit racked her chest and she gasped for air. Servants rushed to attend her. They held a silver basin to her mouth. Anne threw up bile and laid her head back on the silk pillows. A lady-in-waiting gently wiped blood-tinged mucus from her lips. Richard winced. He sat down on the velvet coverlet and took her hand. “You’re not to tax yourself, my little bird. I can appoint others to the task and—”

  “No, Richard,” Anne interrupted, struggling up in bed. “I enjoy it. Elizabeth is helping me, and so is my mother. It shall be every bit as bright and splendid as you wish, Richard.” He gave her a smile, though his heart felt as heavy as stone. Anne looked even more wan and pale than yesterday, if that were possible, and her hand felt as light as a flake of snow. Afraid she might read his thoughts, he averted his eyes and plunged into conversation.

  “I’ve ordered an elaborate costume for myself of cloth of gold and crimson velvet, slashed with purple satin, and trimmed with ermine.”

  “You shall look very handsome, Richard.”

  “’Tis not why I chose it, my little bird. Sadly, the people judge the King as much by how he looks as what he does. Therefore, I must look most kingly and—and happy—”

  Anne touched his cheek. “And I shall dress most queenly, dear Richard. We shall revel together most majestically.” She managed a smile. As casually as she could, she said, “Elizabeth has been a great help to me. I don’t know what I would do without her.”

  Richard said nothing, but the hand that held hers loosened its hold.

  “You don’t like her. Yet she favours you.”

  “’Tis your womanly wild imagining.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “She has no reason to favour me.”

  Softly, Anne murmured, “Love has little to do with reason.”

  Richard discarded her hand roughly. He went to the window and stared out. A tiring maid came to sponge Anne’s brow. She waved her away; waved everyone away. The chamber emptied. “Why do you dismiss it so?” Anne panted. “As though it’s an impossible thing… Is it because you think you’re not handsome enough to be loved by a beautiful young woman, not tall enough, not blond enough—”

  Richard swung around. “Cease, Anne! I’ve no wish to discuss it further.”

  “You’re weary, Richard,” she whispered, her voice cracking for lack of breath. “Come, sit with me. Drink. It’ll do you good.”

  Richard took a seat by her bed and heaved a heavy sigh. “’Tis not you, my love, but the court. The incessant intrigue. The malicious gossip. The evil eyes always watching, waiting for their chance to wound. I can feel them like daggers in my back. How I hate London, Anne! How I wish to be in the North, with you and—” He broke off, bit his lip. He put out his hand to her and she took it into her own.

  “Dear love, I know. But even here, in this gutter where rats congregate, there are good people. Elizabeth is one of them.”

  “Why must we talk of Elizabeth, Anne? Have you nothing to say to me?”

  Anne felt the silence between them as heavily as the load of sorrow that weighed her down. When it’s too painful to look back, and worse lay ahead, she thought, where do you go, what do you do?

  She laid her head against Richard’s shoulder and closed her eyes.

  ~ * ~

  Chapter 19

  “Sir Mordred; he that like a subtle beast lay couchant with his eyes upon the throne, ready to spring, awaiting a chance.”

  On Epiphany, wearing their crowns, Anne and Richard sat on their thrones, presiding over the Christmas revelry in the great hall of Rufus which had been decorated with candles and evergreens. The air was fragrant with the scent of pine and bayberry, and the hall glittered with colour from the tapestries, silk carpets, and dazzling gowns and jewels of the nobles. Laughter, conversation, and singing resounded through the chamber. Richard had donned his sumptuous robes of crimson, purple and ermine studded with diamonds, and Anne a gown of violet and silver. On the dais where they sat, a fire crackled in the hearth. Even so Anne was cold.

  “My dearest, your fingers are like ice. I shall warm them for you.” Richard lifted them to his lips, kissed them tenderly and held them between both his hands. His heart twisted as he gazed at her. The special prayer that his confessor, Father Roby, had inserted into his Book of Hours from which he read his devotionals had made no difference… none at all. Thin and pale, Anne was so weak she had to be propped up in her throne with pillows. She had always been delicate as a flower, but now she was but a shadow of what she had once been. Richard could no longer fool himself. Anne was doomed. Crushed in spirit, always fragile in health, she would not survive much longer.

  “Sire!” said a messenger.

  Richard blinked. The man knelt before him. “I bring an urgent message from France, Sire.”

  Richard waited.

  “Our agents beyond the seas report that, notwithstanding the potency and splendour of your royal state, Henry Tudor will, without question, invade the kingdom this summer.”

  After a pause, Richard said. “Nothing more desirable can befall me than to meet Tudor in the field at last.” The man withdrew.

  “Is that true?” asked Anne quietly.

  “Waiting has never been my strength, my sweet. The sooner he comes, the better for me.”

  Anne felt a chill and drew her fur mantle closer. Richard was in no condition to defend his kingdom. He was pale, haggard, more careworn than she had ever known him. He barely slept anymore. She knew, because she feigned sleep for his sake, and he feigned it for hers, but as soon as he thought her asleep, he rose to kneel in prayer, or sit at the window and stare up at the heavens. She bit her lip. If he met Tudor in his condition, there might well be disaster. And Tudor, shrewd, ruthless, and cunning as he was said to be, no doubt knew that. Margaret Beaufort’s son would be one who could smell his quarry’s blood even from across the seas. She closed her eyes and raised a hand to her head. She felt suddenly dizzy.

  “Anne!” cried Ri
chard.

  “’Tis nothing, my love, merely a passing faint,” she managed. Looking at him, she remembered that blessed time when news arrived that Edward, only weeks before his death, had granted Richard the county palatine of Cumberland, making him virtually a sovereign prince independent of England. They had come so close to taking a far different path in life. So very close. But that dream had been spun of gossamer, shimmery and beautiful, and too frail to bear the burden of reality.

  Anne’s face had acquired a poignant, sorrowful look, and in an effort to distract her, Richard said, “Your gown is magnificent, dear Anne.” In conversation there was a mindless solidity that kept dread thoughts at bay. “But why is it that Elizabeth wears the same?” He frowned in his niece’s direction.

  “Because I care for her,” replied Anne. “And because she is eighteen and reminds me of myself when I was that age, and in love.” Softly, she said, “Richard, will you not dance with her?”

  Richard’s eyes met hers. For a long time they held each other. Slowly, Richard transferred his gaze to his brother’s daughter. She was conversing with Humphrey Stafford as she strolled gracefully along on his arm, turning heads as she went. She wore no headdress except a circlet of crystals and pearls, and her long golden hair shone like sunlight in the glow of the torches. She looked startlingly beautiful. Anne was right; there was a resemblance between them. He heard Elizabeth laugh, a clear sound that evoked the ringing of bells. The past stirred in his heart and Anne’s image flashed into his mind’s eye, as she had been at his brother George’s house, beneath the starry sky, by the river’s dark edge. He gripped the side-arms of his throne and willed the memories away.

  “Richard, what is it?” Anne whispered. He had blanched and his arm had jerked suddenly. When he turned his face to her, his grey eyes were filled with raw pain. “Nay, my lord,” Anne cried softly, reading his thoughts. She clutched his sleeve. “’Tis God’s will, Richard. Look not to the past, but to the future. ’Tis no use to dwell on what we cannot change… Dance with her, my dearest.”

  Like a man in a trance, Richard rose to his feet, gave Anne a small bow, turned and went down the steps. Music floated to him from the minstrel’s gallery, but it seemed very far away. Someone asked him a question, which he neither absorbed nor would have answered if he had. As he walked past his guests, faces stared at him strangely; they blurred, faded away, were replaced by different faces. Directly ahead stood a familiar figure in a brilliant silver and violet robe that might have been Anne years ago. He went up to her and inclined his head. She blushed, sank into a deep curtsy. He offered his hand and she took it. He noted without emotion that her hand was soft as a flower petal. As Anne’s had once been.

  The minstrels broke into a lilting pavane. He led her to the dance floor. Trusty Lord Howard and his son, Thomas, fell in behind him with their ladies. Others followed: Rob, Jack, Ratcliffe, Brackenbury, Conyers, Catesby, the Lords Scrope of Bolton and of Masham, Francis, Greystoke, and the two Harrington brothers who were Knights of the Body. All his loyal, faithful friends, closing ranks behind him. The line moved up and down in rhythm to the melody; they turned, they twirled, they changed partners, and returned again. Ahead of him, Anne smiled at him; to the side, Elizabeth smiled at him. Violet and silver dress; gold hair and violet eyes; pointed chins and rosebud lips. Anne, as she had once been.

  Silver-haired John Howard slapped his thigh and gave a roar of merriment, and such a joyous roar it was that it penetrated to Richard through the fog around him. He became aware of people. They were murmuring; stealing hostile glances at him and Elizabeth. He didn’t care. What did it matter? Nothing mattered anymore.

  ~ * ~

  Margaret Beaufort stood with her husband, Lord Stanley, Lord Stanley’s son, George, and their henchman Reginald Bray. They watched carefully from the side of the room, as they had the previous Christmas. “What do you make of this spectacle?” inquired Margaret Beaufort with a raised eyebrow.

  “We’re about to have a new queen,” Lord Stanley grunted. “He has dressed them the same to bring them to our attention. What else could be meant by it?”

  “Indeed, Father, I believe you’re right. Elizabeth of York will take Anne’s place as his queen—and soon, I wager,” said his son.

  Margaret Beaufort glanced around the room at the faces of the prelates and the nobles watching the King dance with Elizabeth of York. “So think they all.”

  George Stanley bent his head, dropped his voice to a whisper. “I wonder, does he mean to do away with his queen in order to marry Elizabeth the sooner, and so thwart our Henry’s plans?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Margaret Beaufort hissed. “He may be poisoning her already. See how she looks. Like a skeleton in a coffin.” She locked eyes with Bray who edged close, lowered his ear to her lips. “If she dies before my Henry can marry Elizabeth, it would foil our plans. We must crush this idea of his.”

  “By what means, m’lady?” whispered Bray.

  “The trusted, tried, and true methods which we devised two years ago and which are exacting such a toll on our dear Richard.” She smiled suddenly and her eyes glittered. “Placards,” she hissed softly.

  ~ * ~

  From the opposite side of the hall, the Countess’ gaze moved between Anne, Richard, and Elizabeth, and back again. She left the Scropes and Richard’s sister, Liza, with whom she had been conversing, and took the steps of the dais to her daughter’s side. “I fear it was not a good idea. There are murmurings about you and Elizabeth wearing similar dress. People are thinking the worst, dear child,” she said heavily.

  “People always do, Mother.”

  The Countess turned her gaze on the old sea-dog Howard shaking a merry leg and twirling his lady under his plump arm like a ribald youth, then at Richard, moving mechanically with Elizabeth. “Why can’t they see the truth?… That some dance to remember… and some to forget.”

  Anne coughed, laboured for breath. Tears stung the Countess’ grey-green eyes. “My dear one, what will I—will he—do without you?”

  “He will carry on, Mother… with Elizabeth. Where there is love, life can begin again.”

  The Countess took her daughter’s hand tightly in both of her own.

  “Now smile, Mother. The eyes are watching.”

  The Countess forced her trembling lips to curve, tears blinding her vision.

  ~ * ~

  Chapter 20

  “O my soul, be comforted!”

  In the dull greyness of the February dawn, Richard left his chambers and strode down the back staircase that connected to Anne’s rooms. They slept separately now. The doctors had forbidden him to share her bed since January when she began coughing up blood. She was contagious, they said, and it was vital he keep his distance. He bowed his head, stepped through the arched entry into the side passageway that led to Anne’s chambers, and encountered the Countess, leaving. “How is she?” Richard’s heart did not beat as he waited for her answer. The Countess was silent for a moment, gazing at him with red-rimmed eyes. Sounds of coughing filtered from Anne’s room. “She has not long, my lord.”

  Richard smashed his fist into the stone wall.

  The Countess placed a gentle hand on his sleeve. “’Tis the will of God.”

  “No—!” he moaned, sagging into the wall. He turned bloodshot eyes on her. “Why is He doing this? Was Ned not enough for Him? What is enough for Him?”

  “Hush, my lord! Don’t let them hear you speak thus. You must not rail against God, my lord. Even a king must bow to His will.” She glanced along the hall to the antechamber milling with servants, physicians, monks, and ladies-in-waiting. With an arm around his shoulders, she guided him in the opposite direction into a small room off the passageway. Two maidens sat in the window seat, chatting. Startled to their feet, they bobbed a curtsy and fled, their shock at Richard’s condition evident on their faces.

  Leaning on the Countess, Richard made his way to the window seat. “My lord,” the Countess said,
“’tis best you not see Anne until you are better yourself. She worries about you; all her thoughts are for you. It would break her heart to see you thus.” Richard looked up at her pitifully. The Countess sank down beside him and took his hand into her own, tears rolling down her cheeks.

  ~ * ~

  It was not until later in the day, after dealing with a host of problems with his council, that Richard felt composed enough to visit Anne. He paused at the door, forced a smile on his face, and entered. The bed hangings of silver brocade were pulled back and tied with ropes, and the sun, which had broken through the clouds, slanted into the room from the windows that stood cracked open for air. Dressed in a dark chemise and covered by a grey velvet coverlet embroidered with tiny silver roses, Anne lay propped up on white silk pillows, her arms stretched out woodenly at her sides. Elizabeth was with her, playing chess on the bed, and her pale gold hair and dress of emerald silk brightened the room as vividly as any of the jewel-coloured tapestries that hung on the stone walls.

  “The knight,” Anne whispered.

  Elizabeth moved the knight. “Very clever, my lady. Now let me see how I can salvage myself—” Thoughtfully, she cupped her chin in her hand and examined the board.

  Richard’s heart filled with gratitude to Elizabeth.

  Anne glanced up, caught sight of him at the door. “My dearest lord!” she cried with delight. She tried to rise, fell back, choked by a fit of coughing. Then she gagged. Elizabeth leapt to her feet, grabbed a silver basin, and held it to her mouth. The room filled with the stench of vomit. She smoothed Anne’s damp hair, helped her lay back against the pillows.

  Richard strode to Anne’s side, snatched a damp towel from an approaching maidservant. “I’ll do it,” he barked. The woman bowed her head, stepped aside. He dabbed the gilt-edged cloth to Anne’s mouth, and winced as he wiped away blood. He accepted a clay cup from a monk. The foul-smelling liquid, thick as oil, offended his nostrils. “What is it?”