The Rose of York: Crown of Destiny Page 2

  All was quiet. Peaceful. Only the sound of wind and water punctuated the cold, clear night. He looked up at the sky; a few frosty stars glittered in the heavens, radiating a sense of permanence.

  But he knew that nothing was permanent, that life offered no certainties. He thought of his beloved wife, Anne, Warwick the Kingmaker’s daughter, and his sweet babe, Ned, and wondered how they fared. Ned had been sickly since birth, and that worry had proved a greater burden than he and Anne would ever admit to one another. Never robust herself, Anne had suffered several miscarriages before Heaven had blessed them with Ned. The birth had been difficult, and the doctor had given him a choice: Anne’s life, or the life of the babe. He had chosen Anne. By God’s grace, they had both survived—but there would be no more children. So they doted on Ned, and fretted. His mind drifted back to their farewell in front of the castle walls.

  “God keep you, my lady… and our fair babe,” he had said as his eyes sought Ned. The little one had celebrated his first birthday the day before, the sixth of May, and now he slept in his nurse’s arms, bundled tightly in the soft velvet blanket Anne had embroidered with his coat of arms of the Neville saltire and the Plantagenet Lilies and Leopards. His gaze moved to Anne’s mother, Anne Beauchamp, Countess of Warwick.

  She stood a step behind her daughter, looking matronly in the grey gown that flowed from her shoulders, her eyes sad beneath her soft hat and pleated veil. How many times, Richard thought, had she stood as Anne does now, watching her own husband leave for battle, wondering if he will return? “And you, Madame,” he had said gently, “farewell. Guard them both for me till I return.” She had inclined her head and given a small curtsy. He turned back to Anne.

  Slender as a willow and radiant as a yellow rose, she stood in her robes and he was reminded of the first time they’d met, when she was seven and he was nine, and he’d thought he was gazing into captured light. Tears rolled down her cheeks now. Aye, parting held bitter memories for them both—the lessons of the past could not be forgotten, and at times like these, seemed too near for comfort.

  He reached down and tilted her chin up to him. “All will be well, my sweet,” he said. Anne’s lips, fragrant and warm, brushed his.

  A violent roll of the ship jolted him into the present. He grabbed the rope railing to steady himself. Aye it’s time to go back and give sleep another chance, he thought. Fixing his gaze on the stars, he offered a prayer for their safekeeping, and that he would see them again.

  ~^~

  At breakfast the next morning, Exeter was absent. Richard wondered how a man who had starved in the Tower for five years could miss a meal. When Exeter made no appearance at luncheon, Richard sent a man-at-arms to search for him. Then he went to join Edward in the cabin they shared.

  Reclining against cushions, Edward looked up from the bed. Maps of France lay scattered throughout the cabin. He rubbed the back of his neck, and grinned. “I’m getting too old for war, Dickon.”

  “You’ll feel better when you’ve won France,” said Richard.

  “Aye, it’ll do my heart good, as well as my coffers. But if the truth be known, I’d rather be fighting the Battle of the Boudoir!” Edward laughed. “That’s more to my taste.”

  Richard regarded his brother affectionately. That Edward preferred peace to war was well known and a trait widely regarded as a weakness. Many a plot against England had been hatched on French shores in the full belief that Edward’s threats of reprisal would forever ring hollow. But genial as Edward was, much as he loved his pleasure, and though war interfered with the royal trade sending money flowing into his coffers of late, King Louis of France had troubled his peace too long. He itched to teach the French king a lesson.

  With a slap to the thigh, Edward heaved himself up from the bed. “Welladay, the old Spider must be trembling now that I’m on my way to squash him, eh, brother? Remember what he said when he heard I would invade…” Edward placed his palms together, looked up at the sky, and mimicked in a squeaky voice, “Ah, Holy Mary, even now, when I have given Thee fourteen hundred crowns, Thou dost not help me one whit!” Edward roared with laughter.

  Richard gave a tight smile. He himself had never cared for King Louis. Aside from the fact that Louis was a deceitful man and given to intrigue, Louis of France had been instrumental in arranging Anne’s first marriage to Prince Edouard of Lancaster.

  A knock came at the door. It was the man-at-arms Richard had sent in search of Exeter. “Your Grace, the Duke of Exeter is nowhere to be found.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Aye, my Lord. We’ve searched the entire ship. Even the latrine. There’s no sign of him, and his pallet has not been slept on.”

  “Very well.” Richard gave a nod of dismissal and waited until the cabin door had closed before turning to Edward. He found his brother watching him with a strange look in his blue eyes. Sudden realization struck him like lightning out of a clear sky. That was no dream he’d had the previous night! Murder had inspired it—or mingled with sleep to give his dream a hideous significance.

  “Harry’s dead, isn’t he?” Richard said.

  “Looks that way,” replied Edward, toying with his empty goblet.

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  “Do?” Edward returned his gaze to his brother. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Find the murderers. Hang them.”

  Edward chuckled. “How unstatesmanly of you, Dickon. Don’t you know I need all the murderers I can get to help me kill the French?”

  Normally Edward’s jests made Richard grin in spite of himself, but not this time. “You mean you’re going to let St. Leger and his henchmen get away with this?”

  “You don’t know Harry was murdered. He might have fallen overboard. Or jumped.”

  The hint of amusement in Edward’s tone angered Richard. “Pushed, more likely! Had I been a few minutes earlier going to the deck last night, I would have caught St. Leger in the act!”

  “Perhaps, but you didn’t. That leaves nothing but conjecture—not enough for which to hang a man.”

  “How can you be so unconcerned, Edward? For Christ’s sake, a crime’s been committed! Your prime duty as King is to serve justice.”

  “Ah, my little brother,” sighed Edward, filling his goblet from a wine barrel in the corner, “you have always been overly concerned with the justice of the thing, haven’t you? Heaven knows why.” He downed a gulp and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Look at the practical side for once, Dickon. Harry’s no loss. He was a carved-in-stone Lancastrian. King Louis gave him succour those years of exile from England, and once we reached France he would have fled back into the Spider King’s embrace the first chance he found… Taking our secrets with him, no doubt.” He upended his cup.

  Richard watched his royal brother drain his wine. Once upon a time, Edward had cared about justice as much as he did. But ensnared in his evil Queen’s clutches, the golden, idealistic warrior-Prince had slowly degenerated into a King too fond of wine and women, concerned only with his ease—and the easy way out.

  “Take my advice, little brother. Forget the whole unsavoury business. Harry’s not worth it.”

  A rap came at the door. Edward’s bosom friend Hastings entered, a genial smile on his broad-carved face. Richard inclined his head in greeting, trying to suppress his distaste for the man. Hastings was one of Edward’s two debauched companions in his wantonness. The other was Edward’s own stepson—the Marquess of Dorset, the Queen’s son by her first marriage to Lancastrian knight Sir John Grey. With Edward’s indulgence, Dorset had remained behind in England, ostensibly for the sake of his duties, but common knowledge held that cowardice, not duty, kept him there.

  “Aha, Will, just the man I need to lighten my spirits! My little brother’s heavy talk of murder and hangings has left me parched. Fetch yourself some wine and fill my cup while you’re at it.”

  Richard realised that all further entreaties were useless. As he withdre
w from the cabin, Edward called out, “Be happy for our sister, Dickon. She’s free to wed St. Leger now. See, it turned out for the best after all!”

  ~*^*~

  Chapter 2

  “Lo, mine helpmate, one to feel

  My purpose and rejoicing in my joy!”

  Seated at the cradle, with her babe asleep at her shoulder and her faithful hound curled up at her feet, Anne Neville, Duchess of Gloucester, gazed out the window into the fading light of day. The gentle hills surrounding Middleham Castle glowed a deep green after the rain, and pear trees dotted the landscape with luminous white blossoms. Sheep bleated, and the church bells, never silent for long, tolled the hour of Vespers across the dales.

  Day is already ending, she thought. How late it was. How quickly the seasons had flown! In this happy period of her life, time had a way of vanishing, and already the enchanted summer of 1474 that had brought her child into the world had yielded to the spring of 1475.

  Servants entered to light the torches. She closed her eyes and nuzzled her sleeping infant, seeking strength from his warmth. Exhausted, she had taken a moment to rest from the endless stream of petitioners that filled the antechamber, but dismissing those who remained was out of the question. She could not turn her back on need. Once she had laboured as a scullery maid herself, and now, even her exalted status as Duchess of Gloucester failed to erase the memory of that desperate time in her life.

  She took the sleeping child from her shoulder and laid him gently into his cradle. He stretched and gave a yawn. Anne smiled tenderly and adjusted his blanket with a gentle touch. Christened Edward, in honour of Richard’s royal brother, the babe was a beautiful child, with Richard’s dark hair and Neville-blue eyes that brought to mind her father, the proud Kingmaker, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. But it was the babe’s dimples, which could only have come from her uncle John, Lord of Montagu, that caught the heart.

  She smiled as she rocked his cradle. Reluctant to be parted from her little one, whom they affectionately called Ned, she used the nursery as a state chamber, giving orders to stewards and chamberlains, answering letters, arbitrating quarrels, and receiving petitioners. Her little Ned didn’t seem to mind, and cooed or slept peacefully most of the time.

  She felt a hand on her shoulder, and looked up from the cradle. “Let me dismiss them, my dear. Just this once?” said her mother, Anne Beauchamp, Countess of Warwick.

  “No.” Anne struggled to her feet. “I’m their only hope, Mother, or they wouldn’t have made the arduous journey. You know I can’t turn them away. Tomorrow there will be as many more.”

  “If George had not left me a pauper, I could help you,” the Countess said.

  The mention of George’s name seemed to blow a cold wind into the room. Anne shivered. George was Richard’s brother, who, after the civil war ended, had spitefully abducted her and hidden her away as a servant in a London kitchen so that she couldn’t wed Richard. He had also stolen—there was no better word for it—her mother’s lands and wealth, leaving her impoverished without even a roof over her head, and forced into Sanctuary. George had also tried to take Middleham Castle from them—Middleham, so full of memories, so much a part of them! She and Richard had met at her father’s castle of Middleham when she was seven and he was nine, and they’d grown up to fall in love. Fortunately, Richard had won that dispute, and then invited the Countess to live with them.

  “I know, Mother, but this is the way it is, and we must carry on as best we can. I just wish Richard hadn’t left. I miss him so.” She cast her sleeping babe a look of yearning as she tore herself from his side. Richard’s absence ached in her heart as fiercely as it had during those terrible years when their families had been swept apart by war, but here, in this babe, lay solid remembrance of him, and a reminder that the fearsome past was dead.

  It was a reminder she found herself needing constantly. She was secure now, happily wed to her childhood sweetheart, but the harsh memories of a past laden to the breaking point with loneliness, loss, and grief still rose up to torment her at odd hours of the day and night. Now that Richard had left for war, only little Ned could chase away those dark memories and bring her comfort.

  With a soft sigh, the Countess took Anne’s place at the cradle. Delicate as her daughter was in appearance and in health, there was nothing delicate about her will. She would see the petitioners, every last one, and argument was futile.

  Guessing the train of her mother’s thoughts, Anne gave her an apologetic kiss on the cheek before moving to take up her stance at the centre of the dais. Heaving a sigh, Richard’s old hound, Percival, followed her and arranged himself on her skirts.

  Anne turned to a man-servant. “Ask Sir James to send in the nuns.”

  He withdrew with a bow. A moment later, the door opened and her steward, Sir James Tyrell, entered with a scrivener and two nuns in tow. The scrivener resumed his seat at his desk, Sir James stood beside him with a hand resting on the man’s shoulder, and the nuns curtseyed, their habits crumpling to form two grey puddles on the bare floor. Anne bid them rise. “How can I help you?” she asked.

  “I am from the Convent of Startforth,” said one. “A boarder has come to us, Your Grace—an orphan. She is a deserving child, but without means. Her parents died of the plague and she has nowhere else to go, no family left. We cannot keep her without help, my lady. Times are hard, and we have barely enough to feed ourselves as it is.”

  Anne turned her gaze on the second nun.

  “I am from the convent of Shildon, Your Grace. Our walls are crumbling. I come to beg a benefice to repair them.”

  “You shall both receive what you need,” Anne said without hesitation. “Be it so noted, Sir James.” Her steward nodded to the scrivener, who began scribbling. Anne gave her hand to be kissed.

  “Thank you, my lady, thank you!” they cried in joyful unison. “May God bless you for your goodness, Your Grace. May the bounty of Christ be yours.”

  The nuns were ushered out. Other petitioners came and went: a poor knight seeking relief from his taxes, a prior who couldn’t afford the fee for a royal licence, a free-holder whose sheep had died of disease and who needed a loan to get back on his feet. As the last one left the room, Anne was swept with a sudden bout of dizziness. The Countess leapt to her feet in alarm. Taking her daughter by the shoulders she led her to a chair.

  “You shouldn’t have gone to the village today! You’re wearing yourself out, dear child. I keep telling you to stop visiting the sick—you’re never been healthy, and whether you believe it or not, your charity in York can distribute food and clothing to the poor without you. But do you listen? No, you go and found another for the lepers…”

  “Mother, you know why I do it,” she managed, her voice a whisper. “The lepers are pitiful. And the poor are so happy to see me. How can I not go? It gives them comfort.”

  “Nothing you do is ever enough to stem the need. The sick and the poor and the desperate are always with us. Your charity will be the death of you!”

  “Now, now, Mother,” chided Anne, closing her eyes. It felt good to rest.

  But she knew her mother was right. She’d set herself a cruel pace. Often, Vespers had passed and darkness had fallen by the time she could retire to the solar for a few precious moments with Richard and little Ned. But what joy in those moments! Sometimes she’d sing along with Richard as he played the lute for the little one, and sometimes she’d just sit, content to watch her mother bounce Ned in her lap. They all delighted in the simplest things he did. When Ned had smiled that very first time, it had seemed to her that the sun had risen at night…

  There is joy in remembrance, she thought, her head clearing and calm settling over her as she came back to the present. She looked up at her anxious mother. “I’m fine, Mother. Truly. Whatever it was is gone now.”

  “Why do you drive yourself so, my child?” pleaded the Countess, concern evident in her eyes.

  “Because I’m happy, Mother, and in my happin
ess I wish everyone happy.”

  “Your privy purse is drained making everyone else happy,” she scolded, “while you scrimp.”

  “Yet there’s nothing I’d do differently.” Still a trifle dizzy, she went to the window seat and pushed the window open for air. The night was refreshingly cool, and a full moon shone in the dark sky. How she missed Richard! Edward had saddled him with such responsibility that they scarcely found leisure to admire the twilight or stroll in the moonlight together, as they had done when they were first wed. But despite his burdens, Richard was happy, too. She knew, because he called her “Flower-eyes” with ever-increasing frequency. Indeed, the castle glowed with joy and laughter, and like sunlight striking a mirror, the radiance reflected back on her. Now when she reviewed the past, she always paused at the wisdom of her decision in the abbey of St. Martin Le Grand—to elope with Richard and not wait for a papal dispensation.

  Aye, love is all that matters. Love is everything. God understands, and will forgive. She had no doubts about that. Only one cloud marred her near-perfect horizon: little Ned was sickly. “Fret not, Flower-eyes,” Richard constantly reassured her. “Remember that when I was small, I was always so near death that the steward in writing to my Lord father would add a postscript: ‘Richard liveth yet.’” Then they’d laugh and turn their smiles on their child.

  But the King’s business took Richard away from Middleham far too often these days, and on those occasions when he was home, he was often preoccupied. For on his shoulders rested the weighty affairs of war and peace.

  In the year since Ned’s birth, Richard had accomplished wonders in York. His Council of the North, which he had set up to dispense justice to the poor, had grown into a body well-regarded by both rich and poor, righting many wrongs in the vast region under his control. And the border with Scotland, which was always troubled, had grown quieter. Thanks to his tireless efforts, England had secured a treaty and sealed it with the betrothal of James of Scotland’s heir to Edward’s five-year-old daughter, Princess Cecily. Even the seizure of English merchant ships on the high seas had eased. Other accords were also made, netting England peace with all her neighbours. All except France. With France, Edward had decided on war.