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  Buckingham guffawed. “You could call it that.”

  “Don’t take it to heart, Your Grace. A hog cannot be expected to appreciate a pearl.”

  It was Buckingham’s turn to smile. “My dear Morton, at least tonight I have good company.” He tilted his chair back, regarded him thoughtfully. “Let’s say—merely for the sake of argument, you understand—that I have changed my mind about my royal cousin. There’s nothing to be done about it, is there? He’s popular, loved by the people.”

  Buckingham was baiting him and Morton knew it. He linked his ringed fingers over his ample belly and gave the pretty duke a long appraising look. Buckingham’s face was flushed and his eyes held a brilliant, frightening glitter that suggested suppressed fury. Morton decided to bite. “Indeed, the King goes about the land like Arthur, righting wrongs of the poor and powerless—” he leaned forward, lowered his voice to a whisper, “—but what of the powerful, my Duke? ’Tis from them he takes. While he worries about corrupt judges and the poor getting their due, their disaffection grows. And without the support of his lords, a king cannot survive.”

  “Neither can a king survive when he’s a weakling,” added Buckingham sullenly, upending his wine cup. He slammed down his cup, saying hotly, “He hasn’t the courage or the stomach to do what it takes to keep the throne. I told him to get rid of his nephews and he told me to go to hell. He’s not fit to wear the crown!”

  Morton threw a glance around. Thankfully, only the servant boy was in the room to have heard this last treasonous remark. He lowered his voice to a bare whisper. “Frankly, I have never seen a head more closely fitted to a crown than yours, or a quicker mind. Both by the merit of ability, and the merit of your claim, you deserve to be king if Richard is deposed.”

  “’Tis what I’ve come to believe myself.”

  They fell silent again as servants appeared with trays of stuffed piglet and blancmanger, herbed jelly, milk pudding, and a selection of cheeses and grapes. The table was covered with a white cloth and set with silver trenchers. The servant lad refilled their cups with spiced wine. Morton leaned so close to Buckingham that they were almost nose to nose. “Even imprisoned as I am, I’ve heard the murmurings of unrest,” he whispered, his small mouth barely moving. “I shall let you in on a secret: There will soon be a rebellion.”

  Buckingham drew a sharp inward breath. “And I shall be put forward as king?”

  “Regretfully, no. As long as King Edward’s sons are alive, the throne must go to them.”

  “And… if they were dead?”

  “Ahh… That would be an entirely different matter, would it not?” Morton sank back into his chair, scrutinized Buckingham. “Pity, pity… Had we but known that you were willing to join your cause to ours! Alas, one other has been put forward in the dread eventuality of the princes’ death.”

  “Who?”

  “Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond.”

  Buckingham gave a scornful laugh. “He’s a bastard—the grandson of a lowly Welsh squire who was lucky enough to bed a widowed queen! Even on the paternal, his lineage is tainted with illegitimacy for his descent from John of Gaunt and his mistress. While I—” He emphasised his words with a crash of a fist on the table, spilling his wine, “—am a true prince of the blood, descended from a long line of Lancastrians.” The servant lad cleaned up the mess. They fell silent and waited for the boy to resume his stance by the wall.

  “But Tudor’s mother, Margaret Beaufort, has been a prime mover of the conspiracy,” hissed Morton. “We can’t tell her just now that she can’t put her son forward. When Richard is deposed, the nobles will see the rightness of your claim… And if not, at the very worst, you will be hailed Kingmaker.”

  “Kings do not remain grateful to their makers. Look at Edward. Look at Richard. He owes me his crown and now he treats me like a varlet! What makes Tudor different?”

  “The difference, my Lord Harry—may I call you that? For I can no longer see you as my gaoler, but as my friend—is that Tudor is no fool.” He leaned back in his chair and cradled his belly with his ringed fingers.

  “And Richard is, for sure.”

  “Let us count the ways. He has declared himself a champion of the poor, yet the poor cannot help him keep his throne, while the nobles can take it from him. He’s inflexible, makes enemies when compromise would win him friends. There is only right and wrong, he says…” He gave a derisive laugh. “He refuses to hand the Duke of Albany back to Scotland, though to do so would secure peace. That would be the betrayal of an ally, he says. Bah! Albany can do nothing for him and he’s too much a fool to know that kings must act in their own self-interest. In France he refused Louis’ gifts. Bribes, he called them, and to Louis’ face, no less. His insults only gained him France’s undying enmity. Brittany doesn’t trust him because they don’t understand him. An honourable king is a dangerous king. He goes against his own self-interest, therefore one can never anticipate what he’ll do next.”

  He gave Buckingham a cynical smile. “So you see, my friend, France, Scotland, and Brittany will lose no chance to use the disaffection in the realm against him. And there is much disaffection, I assure you, for kingship is not about right and wrong; it’s about power.” He raised his eyes to Buckingham’s face, unable to suppress the urge to flick his tongue over his lips in the manner of a lizard about to devour a juicy, unsuspecting beetle. “Richard’s days on the throne of England are numbered. Those who are wise will abandon ship while it is still afloat.”

  It was then that Buckingham made up his mind. He picked up his goblet. He drank. And he told Morton what until that moment, no other man knew.

  ~ * ~

  Chapter 5

  “A star in heaven, a star within the mere!

  …And one will ever shine, and one will pass.”

  After Tewkesbury, Richard and Anne spent five nights at Warwick Castle, Anne’s birthplace. For Anne, memories swirled around its mighty walls and along its passageways since her father’s presence still seemed to fill the castle he had regarded as the jewel of his estates. While there, they made a day’s visit to Newbold Revel and the widow of Sir Thomas Malory, a Warwickshire knight. A good friend to Anne’s father to the bitter end, and dearly loved by her uncle John, Malory had died with them at Barnet. He had been thrown into prison by Marguerite of Anjou on a false charge politically motivated in the fifties. Released for a short time, he was again imprisoned in 1465 by Edward’s odious queen, Bess Woodville for a remark at which she had taken offence. During the years of his imprisonment he wrote his tales of an historic King Arthur that he entitled The Book of King Arthur and His Noble Knights.

  “What happened to Sir Thomas is an outrage,” Richard told his widow. “I wish you to know, dear lady, that never again shall anyone spend ten years in prison for a crime they didn’t commit. They shall not spend even a single day, for I intend to amend the law to protect the innocent from such abuse.”

  A smile softened the old lady’s wrinkled face. “His faith in you was not misplaced, my Liege. He remembered you from Middleham Castle when you were but a boy, and from that time forth, he always spoke well of you, Sire.” She curtseyed, and they bid her farewell.

  Soon afterward, two days before the Feast of St. Bartholemew, in the brilliant sunshine of a fine August morning, Anne and Richard were reunited with young Ned at Pontefract Castle. He had been ill again and so he was brought there by chariot, accompanied by Anne’s mother, the Countess of Warwick, who never left his side. The joyous reunion stained Anne’s cheeks with happy tears. Not only was she beside herself to behold her child again after so long an absence and so troubled a period in their lives, but it was on this occasion that Ned finally met his cousins, Bella’s and George’s children. Eight-year-old Edward gave him a tight hug, and ten-year-old Margaret—Maggie—who had arrived from the south, curtsied shyly. Though Ned still grieved the loss of his cousin George Neville—as she herself would do for ever more—Anne knew that the friendship between the two l
ittle Edwards would help take Ned’s mind off his loss. As other friendships had.

  A smile curved Anne’s lips as she stood beneath the shade of an enormous beech in the upper bailey by the east gate of the castle watching the reunion between Richard and his bastard son and daughter. Twelve-year-old Katherine and eleven-year-old Johnnie were lovable children and Ned had been filled with joy to discover his new-found brother and sister. Over the past year a deep affection had blossomed to seal the bond of kinship between the three playmates. She remembered a tender moment in the solar at Middleham. “How it brings back memories,” her mother had sighed, watching them romp among the wildflowers that dotted the grassy mound behind the castle walls. “It’s as if time flew backwards, and it is you, and Richard, and Francis, playing there…” Anne had come to her side and placed an arm around her shoulder. “God has not left us bereft, my mother. He has seen fit to take, but He has also given in return.”

  Now Anne watched as Johnnie and Katherine ran to Richard and threw themselves into his arms with shrieks of delight. Richard turned his gaze on her and gratitude glistened in his eyes. How glad she was that she’d agreed to take the children! Richard’s infidelity had wounded her deeply, but somehow she had found the strength to forgive. After all, Johnnie and Katherine had been conceived during the years of war when their families had broken with one another and she had been forced to wed another. Richard had thought her lost to him. Her heart melted to see how they fought Maggie for his hand as they danced around him, skipping and jumping, blurting their news with excitement. Even Bella’s Edward participated in the game, performing cartwheels to steal Richard’s attention away from the others.

  As she walked beside Ned’s rattling litter past the little Norman chapel to the King’s Tower, smiling at her boy and holding his hand, she thanked the Blessed Mother for tender mercies. Jack came to join their side to entertain Ned by taking mincing steps and pretending to be a girl. Laughing merrily, they turned the corner of the chapel.

  The messenger appeared in the entry of the King’s Tower. He bore the Duke of Norfolk’s cognisance of the Silver Lion at his breast. He hurried forward. “My liege,” he said gravely, bending a knee, “the Duke of Norfolk bids me inform you that the tidings I bear are of a most serious, distressing, and confidential nature, and cannot wait.”

  Anne halted in her steps. Jack stiffened, and Francis, conversing with a pretty young woman, broke off in mid-sentence. All along the way, among those within earshot of the messenger, smiles died, movement ceased. Anne was reminded of the picnic on the Ure when the messenger from London had brought the tidings of King Edward’s death and Bess Woodville’s conspiracy to steal power. Her breath caught in her throat.

  “What’s the matter, Mama?” demanded Ned. “You look strange. Do you have a fever too?”

  “No, dearest,” Anne said, forcing a smile to mask her misgivings. But from the corner of her eye, she saw Richard drop the children’s hands and stride into the Tower, Francis, Jack, and Rob at his heels.

  The messenger rushed to follow.

  ~ * ~

  In Richard’s bedchamber, Anne stood gripping the bedpost tightly so Richard would not see how her hands trembled. “Gone?” she whispered for the second time.

  Richard gave a nod.

  “But how?”

  “We’ve been over it a hundred times, my councillors and I, Anne. We don’t know how it happened. But it did.”

  “Edward’s servant boy, too?”

  “Both of them. I suppose whoever is responsible mistook young Edward’s little companion for his brother Richard in the dark. Both have vanished.”

  She dragged her eyes to Richard’s face. He looked dreadful. Pale, drawn, older—far older than he had any right to look. “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. I have no idea. They could be… could be…” He made himself say the word. “Dead.” He sank down on the edge of the bed. “We’re searching for them.” He cradled his head in his hands.

  She went to his side, sank beside him. “You mustn’t blame yourself. If Edward hadn’t been ill with an infection of the jaw when you moved little Richard to Barnard’s Castle he’d be safe with his brother now.”

  “How am I going to tell the boy about Edward, Anne?” He looked at her with anguished eyes. “Why should Richard believe me? Others don’t. They think I lied for the throne. Now they’ll think I killed for it—”

  “Those who know you will never believe that. You know you didn’t… God knows you didn’t. Isn’t that what counts in the end, that God knows?”

  After a long moment, his hand slipped into hers. She raised it to her lips, pressed a kiss against the bronzed skin, and held it tenderly against her cheek.

  ~ * ~

  No further word was forthcoming from London. The investigation yielded nothing, shed no light on the matter of the two boys in the Tower. It was as if young Edward and his servant lad had vanished into thin air. Their disappearance hung like a heavy cloud over what would otherwise have been a flawlessly happy time for the Gloucester household.

  When Anne awoke on the last morning of August, Richard was gone. She hurried out of bed, threw on her chamber robe, belted it, and slipped on her shoes. She knew where he was. She ran up the tower stairs after him. Richard had taken Edward’s disappearance harder than even she had expected. He was often distracted, brooding, and he slept fitfully, mumbling and crying out in his dreams. It troubled her that he suffered so.

  She reached the open doorway of the battlements and paused, panting for breath. Richard had not sensed her presence and she took a moment to observe him unnoticed. He stood with his back to her, gazing out over the sweep of cliff, hills, dales, and forests, a forlorn figure against the grey skies in his dark hose and white shirt. The wind tore at him, whipping his hair. She pushed her own wild locks back from her face, went to him, rested a hand on his sleeve. “We must try to dwell on the blessings, Richard, and give thanks that little Richard is safe. It was illness that kept young Edward from leaving for Barnard. It was not your fault.”

  Richard’s mouth worked with emotion. “My brother Edward said something once, when I tried to dissuade him from our royal cousin Henry’s murder… He said—” He broke off, swallowed. “He said, ‘To be a king, you have to kill a king.’” He inhaled sharply, turned his pained eyes on her. “That’s what I did, Anne. By deposing young Edward, I killed him. I’m responsible for his death—”

  “You don’t know that he’s dead.”

  “What else? He stands between Henry Tudor and the crown Tudor craves. If Tudor has him, the boy’s as good as dead. If the Woodvilles have him, why haven’t they produced him? He must be dead.”

  “And little Richard lives! Think of that, Richard. He lives!… Because of you!” The wind was chill, and she shivered.

  He turned, took her face into his strong hands and held it as the wind blew her long hair about her. “No, Anne. Because of you… Dear God, I don’t know what I’d ever do without you. You’re all that makes sense in this senseless world.” He gathered her into his arms and held her close. Together, against the wind, they watched as a bleak dawn broke across the land.

  ~ * ~

  A week later, accompanied by the children and a splendid retinue of lords, which included the Scottish Duke of Albany who had sought refuge in England, Richard and Anne entered York. Their welcome was delirious. The entire city had turned out to greet them. A deafening cheer erupted from a thousand throats when the scarlet-clad mayor and aldermen came to receive them outside the city walls, followed by the council and chief citizens in red and others in blue velvet. As they entered on the south, by the twin-turreted towers and chief gateway of Micklegate Bar, the crowds on the walls flung rose petals that fluttered down like coloured rain. Doves were released and flew off into the falling petals with a thunderous flapping of wings.

  Riding between his parents on his chestnut palfrey, Ned looked up at his mother, eyes round with delight. Anne smiled at hi
m, and then over his head at Richard. Happiness and pride had relaxed Richard’s taut features, eased the lines around his mouth, and lent a shine to his grey eyes, which now gazed at her clear and untroubled beneath the glittering circlet of gold on his dark head. He sat tall in the saddle and looked more handsome than ever before. In his rich riding jacket of gold and crimson furred with sable, he was every inch as majestic as Edward had ever been, she thought. Now that his brother was no longer around to dwarf him with his monstrous height, Richard did not seem short to anyone but himself.

  Once they entered the city, it became evident to what lengths York had gone to give them a welcome they would never forget. The streets had been scrubbed, flowers and candles had been placed in every window of the timber-framed houses, and brightly coloured arras had been hung in the streets. The city had prepared three pageants for them: one at the gate, another on the bridge over the Ouse river, and a third at Stayngate. In the evening, they banqueted at the royal castle of York.

  “What a greeting,” said Anne drowsily as she nestled in Richard’s arms that night.

  “Never did I expect such a welcome,” replied Richard. “I wish there were some way to show our appreciation.”

  “Hmmm…” murmured Anne, as she fell asleep.

  ~ * ~

  Richard did find a way to thank the city. Not only would he reduce their taxes, but here, in their beloved York, surrounded by those who knew them and shared their happiness, Ned would be invested as Prince of Wales in a ceremony so splendid it might well be reported as a second coronation.

  The September morning was overcast, but at least there was no rain. Amid the blaze of a thousand pennons, golden banners, satins, and cloth of gold, Ned was invested as Prince of Wales by the Archbishop of York in the cool and solemn dimness of York Minster. With minstrels playing, he walked from the Minster between his parents, his golden rod in his hand, his golden wreath on his brow. The people cheered lustily and sang in the streets to behold their King and Queen in their glittering crowns and ermine-trimmed velvet robes of state, trailed by a train of nobles, knights, and clerics such as York had never seen in living memory. But Ned was unaccustomed to spectacle and noise, and though there was much to marvel at, including the fountain by the Archbishop’s palace that splashed sparkling white wine for him to drink, he was frightened by the fuss being made of him and the roar of the crowds. He tightened his hold on his mother’s hand.