The other boy did not look impressed, however, merely shrugged, and Francis tried again.
“I met his brother, too…Edmund Beaufort. Does he now become Duke of Somerset?” Answering his own question, he decided, “He must, I think, since Somerset died without a son.”
“I did meet Edmund Beaufort once.” Indifferently. “Or so my lady mother told me. It was years ago and I truly don’t remember him. Your family is Lancastrian, then?”
The question was quietly posed, without undue emphasis. Francis was remembering, however, where he was. This was Middleham. He’d win few friends here by boasting of his Lancastrian ties.
“My father did fight for Lancaster at Towton. But he did then accept King Edward as his sovereign,” he said carefully.
He saw at once that his answer had been the right one. The other boy studied him for a moment and then smiled.
“What be your name?”
There was no mistaking the friendly intent and Francis smiled, too.
“Francis Lovell—” he began, and then broke off abruptly, for a man had appeared in the doorway of the stable. The most magnificently dressed man Francis had ever seen, with thigh-high boots of gleaming Spanish leather, brightly colored hose, and a wide-shouldered doublet studded with gems, a dagger hilt sheathed in gold.
“There you be, Dickon,” he said, at the same time that a voice somewhere behind him shouted, “My lord of Warwick is at the stables. Have you word for him on the beheadings…”
The rest of the sentence was lost to Francis. In his ears echoed only the words “my lord of Warwick.” He scrambled to his feet, stared tongue-tied at the Earl of Warwick, and then at his new friend, who’d risen, too, was moving toward Warwick with no evidence of unease and every evidence of pleasure.
“My girls are waiting to welcome you home, Dickon. Nan sent me to fetch you!” This last said lightly, with the playful indulgence it amused him to assume toward his wife.
“I’m eager to see them, too, Cousin.” He turned then, gestured toward Francis.
“This is your ward, Cousin. Francis Lovell, who did arrive in our absence.”
Francis remembered little of what followed. In a daze, he mumbled something, he never knew what, to Warwick’s welcome. Saw the way the Earl rested his arm affectionately around the other boy’s shoulders, listened as they exchanged the easy banter of intimates.
At last Warwick had gone, and they were alone again. The other boy reached down, picked up his forgotten bridle, hung it on a hook over his head.
“I do have to go,” he said. “I’ll look for you tonight at supper.”
Francis found his tongue then. “You’re the Duke of Gloucester,” he blurted out, so abruptly that he made it sound almost like an accusation.
He saw the older boy arch an eyebrow at his tone. “Yes, I know,” he said, with what, had he been older, would have been unmistakable as irony.
The Duke of Gloucester did not look at all as Francis had imagined King Edward’s brother to be. Nor did he act the way Francis fancied a royal Duke would act. It seemed monstrously unfair to him that this boy he’d begun to like should turn out to be Richard Plantagenet, Duke of Gloucester. The one person who’d been friendly to him…a Yorkist Prince, blood kin to the awesome Edward!
He tried to remember what his mother had cautioned about court etiquette, knew he was supposed to kneel, but that seemed crazy here in the middle of a stable, especially when the royal Duke had given him his own handkerchief to wipe the traces of vomit from his face. Was a Duke addressed as “Your Grace” like the King? Or did “my lord” suffice? It was hopeless; it had all gone completely from his head.
“What am I to call you?” he asked at length, too unhappy to hide it, feeling very gauche and lonelier than at any time in this, the loneliest fortnight of his life.
Richard gave him a thoughtful look, and then, a smile of sudden charm.
“My friends do call me Dickon,” he said.
8
Middleham Castle Yorkshire
October 1464
Propping his journal against his drawn-up knees, Francis poised his pen above the parchment, and then began the day’s entry, neatly lettering at the top of the page:
Begun this 14th day of October, the 20th Sunday after Holy Trinity, at Middleham Castle, Wensleydale, Yorkshire, in the year of Our Lord 1464, fourth year of the reign of His Sovereign Grace, King Edward.
I write this in the solar of his Grace, the Earl of Warwick. The hearth log has burned fully a quarter since we did hear Vespers rung in the village, so we must soon be abed. We have been playing at Forfeits, with roasted chestnuts as the stakes, Isabel and Anne and Will and Rob Percy and Dickon and me.
Isabel is the Earl’s daughter. She is 13 and has very pale hair and green-gold eyes like a cat. She can spit like a cat, too, when vexed.
Her sister Anne is different. Anne rarely gets angry. She has fair braids which Dickon likes to pull and brown eyes like her father, the Earl. Her birthdate is in June. She is 8 years of age, like Anna….
Here his pen faltered, and then he resolutely inked in the words my wife. He hoped repetition would make the idea seem less strange to him. After building himself a cache of chestnuts, he resumed:
Will is Will Parr. He is small for his 13 years, like Dickon, but with a face full of freckles and green eyes. He is unfailingly good-natured and my friend.
Rob Percy is one of the Percys of Northumbria. His family is Yorkist but he is a distant cousin to the Lancastrian Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, who died at Towton, and to the Henry Percy, his son and heir, sent to the Tower this spring at King Edward’s command. The title should have passed to the son, but King Edward did bestow it upon John Neville this May as his reward for the victory at Hexham.
Rob talked too much about how pleased he was that John Neville is now Earl of Northumberland. I think Rob fears people will confuse him with his Lancastrian cousins, for he boasts about York more than anyone at Middleham, even Dickon! Like all his kin, Rob has hair like flax and blue eyes. He has a quick temper and is overly fond of jests. He is more Dickon and Will’s friend than mine.
Dickon is my most steadfast friend. He has hair as black as ink and dark eyes of a color midst blue and grey. He has his right arm in a sling of black silk as he took a bad fall tilting at the quintain two days past. Her Grace, the Lady Nan, was much disquieted as he’d broken his shoulder in such a fall a few years ago, soon after he’d become attached to the Earl’s household. She berated him soundly for his rashness. I think she suspects he was showing off for his cousins, Isabel and Anne. She is right, he was!
“What are you writing, Lovell?” Rob Percy rose to his knees, leaned closer.
Francis reacted instinctively, jerking the book back, and Rob’s curiosity ignited.
“Let me see,” he demanded, and reached over to claim the journal.
Evading his grasp, Francis said tightly, “I will not. It’s private.”
Rob persisted; the page tore and Francis fell backward. Rob glanced at the fragment clutched in his fist, and his eyes widened.
“Jesú, he’s writing of us!”
He lunged for the journal, and as the two boys rolled around on the floor, Richard’s wolfhound puppy clambered over their twisting bodies and deposited wet kisses indiscriminately. Managing at last to regain his feet, Francis shoved the larger boy back. Rob stumbled, lost his balance, and tripped over the wooden mazer filled with chestnuts. Scrambling to maintain his footing, he reached out for support and caught Richard’s sling, sending them both crashing to the floor.
Rob saw at once that the other boy was hurt, and Francis was forgotten. “Dickon…Your Grace. I’m sorry, in truth I am!”
Richard’s breath was coming back, and he pushed Rob’s hand away when Rob tried to help him rise. Rob backed away as Will and the Neville girls knelt by Richard, all talking at once.
“Will you cease your hovering?” Richard snapped irritably. Using his free arm to push himself u
p to a sitting position, he glared at Rob.
“You see what happens when you play the fool?” he accused. “Sometimes, Rob, you act as if you haven’t the sense God gave a sheep.”
He winced as Anne tried to adjust the bandage, and Rob was assailed by remorse. “It was Lovell’s doing,” he muttered, and Francis, who’d watched transfixed, burst out with a heated denial, which threatened to kindle the quarrel all over again. It was Isabel, with the inbred imperious authority of a Neville, who silenced them both.
“Clodhoppers, the pair of you!” She pointed disdainfully at the discarded book, lying smudged and torn by the hearth. “Take your silly scribblings. As for you, Rob Percy, just be thankful you didn’t cause Dickon serious hurt!”
She looked back over her shoulder. “Dickon, mayhap we should summon my mother’s physician to be sure?”
“Good God, no!” Richard exclaimed, in genuine alarm. He glanced about at the others. “And I’ll not forgive the one who says a word of this to the Lady Nan.”
Satisfied that his warning had penetrated, he let Will help him to his feet, while Rob seized the opportunity to retreat and Francis to retrieve his journal.
“Dickon…does it pain you much?”
“No, not much, Francis.” Richard elected to sit on the settle, far more sedately than was his wont. “Were you truly writing about us?”
Francis nodded unwillingly and was relieved when Richard let it drop.
Isabel, growing bored, now departed the solar, and the others, settling down with the mazer of chestnuts, resumed a familiar topic of conversation: selecting a name for Richard’s wolfhound. The dog, already enormous at four months and as black as proverbial sin, was a birthday gift from his brother, the King, having arrived by special courier only that week.
The puppy had stretched out at Richard’s feet and was covertly eyeing the soft leather of his shoe. Watching, Francis grinned. He’d been very much impressed that the King should have remembered the birthdate of a younger brother; he felt sure this was not a common characteristic of older brothers, at least not the ones he’d known. Of course Edward had confused the dates somewhat, as Richard had actually turned twelve on October 2, but Francis knew Edward no longer paid any heed whatsoever to the birthdate of his other brother, George, the fifteen-year-old Duke of Clarence.
Not that he faulted Edward for that. Francis held no high opinion of George, who’d paid an interminable visit to the Earl of Warwick and Richard that summer. Francis was thankful George did not reside in the Earl’s household. When provoked, George had a viper’s tongue and he had an unsettling way of finding humor in things that would amuse no one else. Francis found it hard to understand why Richard seemed fond of George. But he had no trouble at all in understanding Richard’s devotion to his eldest brother.
Edward had remained in York until mid-July, negotiating a truce with the Scots. Before departing Yorkshire, he’d detoured north to accept the Earl of Warwick’s hospitality at Middleham. His visit had generated much welcome excitement. Their northern neighbors, the Metcalfes of Nappa Hall and Lord and Lady Scrope of nearby Bolton Castle, flocked to Middleham to honor the King. Francis had noted, with secret surprise, that even the mighty Earl seemed less in Edward’s presence.
He’d envied Richard sorely in the days following Edward’s visit, for the King had made much of his younger brother, keeping Richard by his side long past the boy’s normal bedtime, coming to watch Richard practice with lance and broadsword at the quintain.
Francis now thought Edward’s favorite cognizance, the Sunne in Splendour, to be remarkably well chosen. The pale shadow of Marguerite d’Anjou receded, was blotted out by the sun of York, and for the first time, Francis found himself giving credence to the stories Richard told him of the Frenchwoman’s cruelties. Perhaps she was not so tragic a heroine, after all, he concluded, somewhat regretfully.
Nonetheless, he felt a lingering pity for the Lancastrian Queen, now living in straitened circumstances in France with her eleven-year-old son and a faithful few followers like Edmund Beaufort, now Duke of Somerset, and his younger brother, John Beaufort. He felt some pity, too, for King Harry, reputed to be sheltered by the Scots. But such sympathies Francis did not confide to Richard, or to any others at Middleham. There were certain sacrifices to be made on behalf of his newly forged Yorkist friendships, and discretion was not the least of such demands.
Now he opened the journal he’d been holding in his lap, grimly assessing the damage Rob Percy had done. Plague take him for his prying! With Rob sure to bear a grudge, how could he dare keep the journal? Percy would ferret it from the most secret hiding place, and Francis would burn each and every page before he’d risk having Rob set eyes upon them. Defiantly, he reached down and picked up his pen. Smoothing the page with his sleeve, he wrote:
Will favors Gawain for Dickon’s dog, being much taken with Gawain and the Grene Knight. Anne fancies Robin. She has a spaniel which she calls Maid Marian. Dickon says that if the dog were but a bitch, he could name it Marguerite d’Anjou. That amuses Will but is lost on Anne.
Dickon is out of sorts tonight. His arms pains him, I think. Dickon endures pain without complaint, but he accepts inconvenience with poor grace and now he is vexed because he cannot shell the chestnuts with his left hand. Anne offers to share hers.
Will now suggests that Dickon name the dog Somerset after the man the Earl claims to be the true father of Marguerite d’Anjou’s son, and Dickon laughs. But I fear the puppy will be grey with age ere he decides.
“Francis?”
His pen jerked, smeared the page.
Anne had slipped silently from the settle and was standing before him. “Francis…if you like, I could keep your journal safe for you. I know you’ve little privacy, sharing quarters with Rob and Dickon and the other pages. I could fetch it for you whenever you wished to write in it.”
When he didn’t respond immediately, she colored. “I’d take a solemn vow, in the Blessed Lady’s name, that I’d not read it, and I’d never profane such an oath, Francis, truly I wouldn’t.”
Francis no longer hesitated, held out the journal to her. “I need no such oath from you, Anne. I would be much beholden to you if you would keep it in your chamber for me.”
“I’ll not tell a soul where I store it,” she promised gravely. “Not even Dickon.”
He had no chance to reply. Isabel was back, breathless and eager to share her news.
“Dickon! Father is here! He has just ridden into the bailey and Uncle Johnny and George are with him.”
Richard looked pleased. “I thought he was to remain at Reading with Ned till after Martinmas. Have they moved up the date for the York parliament?”
Isabel had no interest in parliaments. She shrugged, shook her head.
“I don’t know. But this I can tell you, something be very wrong. I saw Father briefly as he came up the stairs into the keep, and he’s in a tearing rage. Never have I seen him so wroth.” She paused; she had an intuitive flair for the dramatic. “And it is your brother who has riled him so!”
Richard showed little surprise. “What has George done now?”
“Not George.” Triumphantly. “Ned!”
“Ned?” Richard echoed incredulously, and she nodded. Her excitement ebbed somewhat and she said earnestly,
“Dickon, I think Ned must have done something truly dreadful.”
They had not long to wait. Within moments, the youthful Duke of Clarence strode into the solar, shouting for Richard even as he came through the doorway that led out into the great hall.
“Dickon! Wait till you hear…” He paused, his eyes flickering incuriously over Richard’s black silk sling. “What the Devil happened to you? You’ll not believe it, God’s truth you won’t. I tell you, he’s gone mad, stark raving mad!”
Richard was frowning. “What are you saying, George?”
“We were at Reading and the council was meeting. Our cousin Warwick reported that the negotiations were proceeding we
ll for Ned’s marriage with the sister-in-law of the French King, when Ned suddenly announced that such a marriage was out of the question, must be dismissed out of hand. And when they pressed him on it, he shrugged and said it so happened that he already had a wife!”
George paused, letting the suspense build to a gratifying pitch before saying with heavy sarcasm, “It seems Ned made a secret May marriage…and then forgot to mention it all those months that our cousin was laboring on his behalf to conclude the French marriage.”
“A secret marriage?” Richard repeated. He sounded stunned and Francis well understood why. If George was to be believed, Edward had done what no other King of England had dared to do in the four hundred years since the Norman Conquest, chosen a wife for his own pleasure.
George nodded. “You did hear me, Little Brother. A secret marriage…to a wench he found fair to look upon! Little wonder our cousin Warwick is sorely affronted!”
“Who is she?” The question coming in perfect unison from Richard and Isabel.
“He was wed in a clandestine ceremony this past May at Grafton Manor in Northamptonshire…to Elizabeth Grey.”
Richard spoke for them all. “Who,” he asked, “is Elizabeth Grey?”
George turned brilliant blue-green eyes upon Richard, eyes that took the light like turquoise. “That is the truly incredible part of this charade. She’s a Woodville, the widow of Sir John Grey, who died fighting for Lancaster at St Albans! She has two sons by Grey, one nearly as old as you, Dickon! And she’s a full five years older than Ned!” He laughed suddenly.
“A twenty-seven-year-old widow with two sons,” he repeated, drawing the words out with evident relish. “And if that weren’t damning enough, she’s distant kin to Marguerite d’Anjou! Her aunt was wed to an uncle of Marguerite’s! Christ on the Cross, Dickon, do you not see now why I say Ned must be mad?”