Only with George did his mask slip; with George, Edward was hard-pressed to be civil. It was, in part, a natural reaction to George’s intensifying hostility. But more than that, it was a bitter reaction to what he saw as a betrayal of his own blood. George was his brother, and to Edward, that made his treachery as unnatural as it was unforgivable.
As for his cousin, Edward thought it fortunate that Warwick wasn’t much at Middleham that September, for he was finding it more and more difficult to deflect the barbs, the sarcasms, with faintly ironic courtesy, to discipline a tongue that had never before known constraints not of his own choosing.
Not only were his nerves fraying under the unrelenting pressure, but Warwick’s own affability was souring. Warwick was becoming far more apt to deliberately select words meant to wound, was curt now when he’d been complacent, patronizingly polite, just weeks ago. Edward noted the change with intense interest, understood it meant that his own position was now more hopeful and, paradoxically, more dangerous, than at any time since those first hours at Coventry.
In these weeks since Olney, Edward knew himself to be as close to death as he’d ever been. But even now, he never quite despaired. From boyhood, he’d done as he pleased, taken what he wanted, and had never found the price too high to pay.
Only once had his luck failed him, in the snow before Sandal Castle, and he’d never been able to stifle the conviction that had he been there that December day with his father and Edmund, he’d have somehow been able to keep them from the folly of that fatal assault. He could not believe that he would lose, even though his cousin seemed to hold all the cards and he had only time on his side.
The September sun was slanting through the unshuttered solar windows, touching Edward’s hair with coppery glints, setting his rings ablaze as his hand hovered over the chessboard. He claimed a knight and looked up at Francis with a challenging smile, while reaching down to fondle the head pressing against his knee.
Francis watched the alaunt lavish a wet caress upon Edward’s hand and laughed aloud.
“It seems even His Grace’s hounds have been won over by you, my liege.”
“Don’t let my cousin hear you say that, Francis. There’s no surer way to gain a man’s enmity than to win his dogs away from him. Better you should seduce his wife, instead!”
Francis laughed, dared to say, “I doubt even you could seduce the Lady Nan, Your Grace! For her, there is but one man in the world…my lord of Warwick.”
Edward suppressed the ribald retort that came to mind, in deference to his youthful companion’s years. He said instead, “That may explain then, Francis, why my cousin seems to trust his wife to my keeping and yet does begrudge me the companionship of his daughters.”
Francis had noticed, too, how both Anne and Isabel were so little in Edward’s company. His discretion had become somewhat lax after exposure to Edward’s easy amiability, and now he said boldly, “It may be your brother of Clarence is jealous, my lord.”
Edward gave a noncommittal smile and a shrug. He’d sensed Francis was sympathetic from that first moment in the great hall, and the boy had confirmed it by the eagerness with which he responded to Edward’s friendly overtures. But Francis was still Warwick’s ward, was wed to Warwick’s niece. Moreover, if his memory did serve him, the Lovells held Lancastrian loyalties. He preferred not to commit himself, not until he could be sure he’d securely won the boy’s affections.
Now he raised guileless eyes to Francis’s dark ones, and detoured the conversation away from the dangerous subject of his brother’s jealousies.
“Well, be that as it may, that still does leave the younger girl, and she’s been as elusive as a wood sprite. I’ve not laid eyes upon her twice in the past week.”
Francis stared down at the chessboard, experiencing a protective pang for Anne Neville.
“She was much grieved, my liege, when you refused to permit her betrothal to His Grace, the Duke of Gloucester.”
“Not as grieved as my cousin of Warwick, I trust,” Edward said dryly, and when Francis said nothing, he prodded, “Your move, Francis.” Adding, in careless curiosity, “I daresay she was even more grieved, then, that Gloucester would not countenance an elopement in defiance of my wishes as did Clarence.”
“No, Your Grace, that’s not so,” Francis said, with enough emotion to earn him a quizzical look from Edward. “She knows him far too well for that.” He shook his head soberly. “Your brother of Gloucester did love the Earl once. But he made his choice nigh on five years ago. I know, I was there.”
Edward was regarding him with sudden absorption. “I do remember now…. You are a particular friend to Dickon, aren’t you?”
Francis caught the subtle shading of the query, nodded.
“I have that privilege, Your Grace.”
He swallowed, kept his gaze upon the ivory chess pieces. He knew Edward was watching him, could feel the man’s eyes upon him, with a probing intensity that was like a physical touch. He reached tentatively for his endangered pawn, and Edward’s hand closed on his. The coronation ring shone for Francis with a blinding brilliance. He raised his eyes to meet Edward’s, knowing what would be asked and what he would say.
“Just how good a friend to Dickon are you, Francis?”
Francis did not need to consider the consequences of his reply. He already knew, had long ago acknowledged a private truth, that his loyalties were pledged not to the Earl of Warwick or the forgotten Queen of Lancaster, but to the House of York. To Dickon and the man who now gripped his hand across the chessboard.
“There is nothing I would not do for your brother of Gloucester,” he said softly, and then his heart gave a guilty lurch, for the incriminating words were no sooner out of his mouth than the solar door opened and the Earl of Warwick entered the chamber.
Warwick frowned at sight of Francis, but forbore to make comment. He could hardly expect to isolate Edward from contact with all in his household, not unless he had him confined to quarters under constant guard. And even that might not be sufficient.
He still remembered the unpleasant shock he’d felt upon entering Edward’s chamber at Warwick Castle, soon after he’d taken his cousin into custody, and finding Edward playing cards with the men charged to guard him. He’d taken steps to see Edward would not be able to fraternize so freely with his gaolers in the future, but the memory of the incident lingered, gave him some uneasy moments. As much as it galled him to admit it, his cousin had a winning way when he so chose, and that, he thought bitterly, made Ned a very dangerous man, indeed. Too dangerous to be set free.
Yet his choices seemed to be narrowing. It would have been one thing to have put Ned to death at Olney or when he’d been brought before them at Coventry. It was quite another to kill him in cold blood after six weeks of captivity. He looked at his cousin, impersonally weighing what he would risk and what he would gain if he did now what he was beginning to believe he should have done at Coventry. He already knew the answer, though, knew that to kill Ned now was a risk he was not willing to take, not unless forced to it.
“You may go, Francis,” he said abruptly, and looked at Edward as if daring him to object to this arbitrary interruption of their game. But Edward gestured casually toward the chessboard, said,
“We’ll pursue this further at a more opportune time, Francis.”
Warwick watched as his ward fled the solar and then turned unfriendly eyes upon Edward. There was no reflection of remembered affection in his gaze, only cold, measuring hostility. In the past month, his feelings for Edward had suffered a sea change, had become encrusted with resentment, bleached of all warmth. Somehow, things weren’t going as he’d planned. He found himself beset with difficulties, encountering obstacles where he’d least expected them, and he could only attribute his mounting problems to the fact that his cousin still lived.
London remained restive, stubbornly loyal to Edward. The Duke of Burgundy was making threats on his brother-in-law’s behalf. There were increasin
g outbursts of violence and pillaging, as opportunists and outlaws alike took advantage of the disruption of authority. Some of Warwick’s own supporters were among those swept up in this sudden lawless surge. Suddenly, it was as if the country had been plunged back into those chaotic days when Harry of Lancaster reigned and Marguerite d’Anjou and the Duke of York fought to see who would rule.
Warwick was deeply disturbed by these tales of civil unrest; he was shrewd enough to see that he had to keep the peace if he hoped to exercise authority, and in recent days, both seemed to be slipping away from him. His frustration was all the greater because he didn’t understand what had gone wrong.
For several years now, Edward’s popularity had been ebbing. The people felt themselves to be burdened with inequitable taxes, blamed Edward because the treaty with Burgundy had not yet brought the anticipated economic benefits, were disgruntled because the Commons had voted Edward a grant of sixty-two thousand pounds last year for war with France but Edward had not as yet gotten around to doing anything about it. Warwick had not expected there to be significant opposition to deposing Edward, did not think people were likely to care, one way or the other, not after more than ten wearying years of strife between York and Lancaster. He was wrong, was now finding that the country still supported his cousin.
Even his own family was giving him more stress than support. His wife could not hide her fear. His daughter Anne, who had little reason to think kindly of Edward, had come to him deeply distressed by gossip she’d heard among her cousin George’s retainers, that he did mean to strip Ned of his crown and bestow it upon George. Shouldn’t he take measures to punish those who so dared to slander his honor? she’d asked him worriedly.
He’d had an embittered confrontation with his aunt Cecily before he left London, another with his brother at Sheriff Hutton Castle. John had warned him bluntly that if Edward were to die in his custody, he’d never believe it to be anything but murder, even if Warwick could summon a score of physicians and priests to swear Edward died through illness or accident.
Warwick was fond of his brother; it had been a painful interview. Nor could he ignore the political implications of John’s stand. As the Earl of Northumberland and a seasoned soldier able to attract a large following to his badge of the Griffin, John was a powerful political figure in his own right. Warwick needed his support; after Sheriff Hutton, he had to face the fact that he didn’t have it.
He’d been forced at last to cancel the York parliament; with the country on the brink of anarchy, he’d have no chance of winning acceptance for George’s claim to the crown. But as bad as the news had been for him that September, he’d not been prepared for the grim tidings his brother George now brought from London.
Outlaws were not the only ones to turn the unrest to their own advantage. A Lancastrian-kindled revolt had flared up along the Scots border, and Warwick swiftly set about raising troops to quell the rising. The response had been disturbingly slow in coming, though, and this afternoon the Archbishop had ridden into Middleham with truly alarming word from the capital. In the South, none would answer their summons to arms. Not as long as the King remained captive.
“I want you to accompany me into the city of York,” he said bluntly, saw surprise flicker briefly in Edward’s eyes, to be quickly replaced by guarded wariness.
“I will be honest with you, Ned. I do need your help in summoning men to arms to put down the Lancastrian revolt.”
He was watching Edward closely, but the younger man showed no identifiable emotion, said nothing, merely continued to finger the chess piece he’d been holding as Warwick entered the solar, his face thoughtful. Warwick took the seat Francis had vacated, said evenly, “I did say I’d be honest with you, Cousin. That means I’ll do whatever be necessary should you decide upon some rash and foolish action while in York. You will, I do remind you, be riding with my men.”
Edward leaned back in his chair, said with a cold smile, “You needn’t worry, Dick. I happen to think it to be very much in my own interest to put a quick end to any rebellion backed by Lancaster.”
Warwick nodded. “Just so we do understand each other.”
Following Edward’s public appearance with Warwick in York, men responded to the call to arms. The rebellion was soon quashed, and its leaders beheaded in York on the twenty-ninth of September as Edward and the Nevilles watched.
With such pressing concerns, Warwick had no time to spare for the whereabouts of his young ward. Francis prudently waited till the Earl had ridden to Pontefract, but he did not anticipate difficulty in finding the courier he sought. Francis had not lived five years in Yorkshire for nothing, knew which men were loyal to York. He slipped away one dawn, took the road south to Scotton, where the family of Rob Percy had long had a manor house. That attempt proved futile, though; he discovered the Percys had been in Scarborough for the past six weeks.
But as he rode home through the village of Masham, his luck suddenly took a dramatic turn for the better. Crossing the bridge that spanned the River Ure, he encountered Thomas Wrangwysh, and Thomas he knew to be one of the few citizens of York who’d always given unwavering support to the Yorkist King. In no time at all, he’d confided to the other what Edward did want done, and was soon galloping north toward Middleham, exultantly sure that Wrangwysh was even then bearing the King’s message south.
October that year gave promise of considerable beauty, dawning with harvest skies and foliage splashed with vibrant color. The noonday sun was directly overhead as the Earl of Warwick and his son-in-law rode into the inner bailey of Middleham Castle after an overnight stay at nearby Bolton Castle.
It had been a fruitful visit. Lord Scrope had agreed to head a commission of oyer and terminar to investigate the continuing disturbances in the South. He’d also bolstered Warwick’s flagging spirits by reaffirming both his loyalty and his friendship, at a time when Warwick found himself much in need of such assurance. It should have helped; it didn’t. Tense and tired, Warwick felt more and more these days as if he were fighting phantoms, that control was ebbing away from him.
Surrendering his mount to a waiting groom, he dismissed their escort, and as George hastened across the bailey toward the Lady Chamber in search of his wife, Warwick rapidly mounted the stairs leading up into the keep. Striding into the great hall, he came to an abrupt halt, staring in disbelief at what he saw before him. Men eating and drinking at long oaken trestle tables, men who wore the badges of England’s nobility. He recognized at once the Duke of Suffolk, who was wed to Eliza Plantagenet, the second of Edward’s three sisters. He recognized, too, the languidly elegant Earl of Arundel. The swarthy Sir John Howard, and by the open hearth, the fifteen-year-old Duke of Buckingham, kneeling to romp with several of Warwick’s dogs. He looked up now, to smile at Warwick with a boy’s unconcern.
Buckingham alone seemed oblivious of the tension in the hall. The men were watching Warwick with expectant interest; several, like John Howard, were openly challenging. Warwick’s eyes moved from face to face, until at last, he found the one he sought. Edward was standing with the Archbishop of York. The latter was resplendent in the jeweled miter and robes of a Prince of the Church, but as white of face as one being marched to the gallows. Edward had been laughing as Warwick entered the hall; he was flushed with triumph, looked surprisingly young and suddenly carefree.
For a moment, time seemed to fragment, the intervening eight years seemed to disappear as if they’d never been, and Warwick was seeing again the jubilant nineteen-year-old youth who’d ridden beside him into London to deafening cheers on that long-ago February day that was to lead to the throne. And then the eerie illusion shattered and Warwick was facing a man who watched him with hard mocking eyes and a smile that promised not remembrance, but retribution.
Francis had twisted around on the window seat of the solar, one that faced west, trying to catch a glimpse of the road that led up from the south. He turned quickly as the door opened, staring in dismay as Warwick and Edwar
d came into the chamber, trailed by the Archbishop of York. He shrank back into the window recess, but they were far too angry to give him any notice.
“I don’t know what you’ve got in mind, Ned, but I’m telling you now, it won’t work. I don’t give a damn if you’ve managed to summon every peer in England to Middleham!”
“As it happens, Cousin, that is just what I’ve done.”
Warwick drew a labored breath, said flatly, “You’re lying.”
“Am I?” Edward jeered, and Warwick found he was gripping the hilt of his dagger so tightly that the studding of jewels left deep indentations in the palm of his hand. He forced his fingers to unclench, let the dagger slide down the sheath.
“Even if you speak true, it matters for naught,” he said at last. “This is Middleham, not Westminster. I do give the commands here. You seem to have forgotten that.”
“No, I haven’t. I assure you I’m not likely to forget anything that has happened in the past two months.”
Francis was frightened by the hatred he saw in Warwick’s face. He had no doubt that, at this moment, Warwick wanted his cousin dead. Edward saw it, too; there was both bitterness and triumph in the twist of his mouth.
“Damn you,” Warwick said suddenly. “Do you truly think I’ll do nothing while—”
“No, I’m not suggesting you do nothing, Cousin. I would suggest you return to the great hall and stand ready to welcome your guests to Middleham. That is, I believe, called ‘appreciating the necessities involved,’ is it not?”
The Archbishop said, too eagerly, “He’s right, Dick. What else can we do but put a good face upon it….” He was ignored.
The silence was smothering. Edward leaned back against the trestle table, kept his eyes on Warwick. One of the Earl’s ever-present alaunts sidled up to Edward, rubbed affectionately against his legs. The silence dragged on, until Francis thought he could endure not another moment of it. The Archbishop seemed to share his sentiments. But Warwick looked murderous and Edward as if he were enjoying himself.