Rob nodded, and unable to resist quoting Ecclesiastes, intoned gravely, “ ‘Woe unto thee, O land, when the King be a child.’ You may be sure that’s much on men’s minds. Look what did happen here in England when Harry of Lancaster came to the throne as a babe…. Chaos and bloodletting and conspiracies. All of which I do most devoutly wish upon the French once Louis dies and his boy heir takes the throne!”
“Anne.” Francis touched her arm lightly. “I’m not sure, but I think something might be wrong.”
There was an unnatural immobility about the scene that now met Anne’s eyes. Hastings’s courier still knelt before Richard, in his outstretched hand a sealed paper. Richard had yet to take it, was regarding him with a curious lack of expression. There was nothing in his face to give alarm, yet people were beginning to glance in his direction, attracted, perhaps, by the utter stillness of his stance.
“Oh, dear God!” Anne never even knew she’d spoken. Shoving her wine cup at Joyce, she began to move toward her husband. The look on Richard’s face was one she’d seen before. Marguerite d’Anjou had listened with that same stunned blankness as William Stanley informed her that her son was dead.
Before she’d taken more than a few steps, however, the frieze shattered. Richard swung around, abruptly exited the hall, roughly shouldering aside a startled minstrel unlucky enough to be blocking the doorway. Conversation came to a sudden halt, then started up again with a vengeance. Hastings’s messenger came stiffly to his feet, held out to Anne the still sealed message.
Anne’s recoil was physical; she actually put her hands behind her back like a reluctant child. She did not want to know what was in that letter, dared not take it, sensing that what it contained would forever change her life, the lives of those she loved.
“Madame? Madame, I do come from Lord Hastings.” The man’s voice was hoarse, thick with fatigue, but his eyes were full of unsettling sympathy.
“I regret deeply that I must be the one to tell you. The King is dead.”
The candle had been marked to count the passing hours; it was now burning down toward one o’clock. Three hours he’d been gone. Three hours. Where was he? Let him come back. Blessed Lady, let him be all right.
Without even realizing it, Anne had begun to pace again. Knowing Richard as well as she did, she should have realized, should have guessed what he’d do. She just hadn’t been thinking clearly. She’d gone first to their bedchamber, then to the chapel. By the time it occurred to her to check the stables, it was too late. A bewildered groom confirmed that Richard had roused him from sleep, demanded that he saddle a horse. It had been a good quarter-hour since the Duke had ridden out, he told Anne apologetically, adding in uncertain concern, “My lady, be there trouble? The Duke did spur his stallion through the village like the hounds of Hell were on him!”
Since then, Anne had worn a path to the solar window facing north, was drawn toward it now. The village was cloaked in dark, and beyond, all was utter blackness. A man could so easily lose his way; his stallion could stumble, pull up lame.
She mustn’t torment herself like this. Richard did know the dales of Wensley and Cover as well as any man in Yorkshire. Yes, but he was riding White Surrey, the fiery-tempered destrier Ned had given him last June at Fotheringhay. A horse bred for battle, as high-strung as it was beautiful. What if it bolted and threw him? Or if it blundered into a sinkhole? Who would know? A man grieving might well make a careless misjudgment, and on the moors such mistakes were often fatal.
Perhaps she should send men out after him? But he’d never forgive her for that, never. She’d wait awhile longer. Surely he’d be back soon. He hadn’t taken a cloak, and winter lingered late in Yorkshire. At night, an icy chill came down off the Pennines.
Loki, the alaunt she’d given Richard to fill the void left by Gareth’s loss, rubbed against her skirts like some huge silver-grey cat; the slanting dark eyes were so sorrowful that Anne found herself blinking back tears. She mustn’t give way, though. She had to hold herself together, had to be ready to comfort Richard when he returned. Oh, God, what could she say to him? He’d loved Ned so much.
She had to stop this. Richard was a man well able to look after himself; she must try to remember that. A quick glance toward the candle told her it was nigh on 1:30. Mother of God, where was he?
If only she hadn’t read Hastings’s letter! If only she could put it from her mind. But she couldn’t seem to help herself. Again and again, she found herself picking it up, rereading words already burned into her brain. A letter striking for its startling brevity, two terse paragraphs. Anne had never thought much of Will’s morals, but his manners she knew to be impeccable. What urgency had been prompting his pen when he wrote this?
The first paragraph said only that Edward was dead, that he’d died on April 9 at Westminster. Wednesday last…. She and Richard had gone hawking on Carlton Moor, not returning to Middleham till dusk. It had been a good day, a day of easy laughter and bright sun. When, she wondered suddenly, would they ever have such a day again?
She mustn’t think that. She mustn’t panic. But why was Hastings’s letter so fraught with unspoken dangers? It was the second paragraph that haunted her, that stirred up such foreboding. “The King has left all to your protection—goods, heir, realm. Secure the person of our sovereign lord Edward the Fifth and get you to London. For sweet Jesú’s sake, don’t tarry, and look to yourself.” No, not a letter to reassure.
“Anne?” Véronique was standing in the solar doorway. “Anne, they’re signaling from the gatehouse. He’s just ridden in.”
Although he was standing directly in front of the hearth, Richard was still trembling with cold, and when Anne gave him a cupful of hot mulled wine, his fingers were so stiff and cramped that it slipped from his grasp, spilled into the fire. He scarcely seemed to notice, even when the flames shot upward, hissed, and sputtered.
“Here, beloved,” Anne said swiftly, holding out her cup. She watched with anxious eyes as he brought it to his lips, resisting the urge to steady his hand with her own. Pray God he hadn’t caught a chill; she yearned to put her lips to his forehead to reassure herself he wasn’t feverish. But above all, she yearned to put her arms around him, to hold him close and comfort him as she would their son.
She couldn’t, though. He was not two feet from her, and yet beyond reach. My darling, don’t. Don’t shut me out like this. Let me help. The words hovered on her lips, got no further.
“Where is Hastings’s letter?” Richard asked suddenly, and Anne cursed herself for not having hidden it, for not being able to say she’d mislaid it. She didn’t want him to see that letter, not tonight. Let him have one night to grieve for his brother, one night free of the insidious doubts Hastings had raised. But the letter lay out on the solar table, lay in plain sight, and he was already reaching for it.
She saw his face harden as he read, saw him crumple the letter in his fist when he’d finished. For the first time, he looked Anne full in the face. His eyes were very dark, looked bruised.
“I had to learn of it from Will Hastings,” he said huskily, and there was in his voice both a bitter grieving and a savage rage. “That bitch hadn’t even the decency to tell me herself that my brother was dead!”
2
Middleham
April 1483
Anne awoke just before dawn, after a night of troubled dreams. It was a day she’d been looking to with dread, the day of Richard’s departure for York and then London. She lay very still, kept her eyes tightly shut. Twice in the eleven years of their marriage, she’d seen Richard ride off to war, but never had she been so frightened for him as she was now, as he prepared to ride south to claim the protectorship of the young King.
She thought of the boy with pity. He was so young to have such burdens thrust upon him. If only he were better acquainted with Richard, weren’t so much under Anthony Woodville’s thumb. If only she could believe all would be well, that Elizabeth would not seek to circumvent Ned’s will. Abov
e all, she wished she didn’t know so well the history of her husband’s House, wished she could forget the fates of Thomas of Woodstock and his son Humphrey. Like Richard, Thomas had been uncle to a boy King; when that King reached his majority, he had Thomas arrested and murdered. Humphrey’s lot was no luckier; he had been named Protector to the young Harry of Lancaster, but he’d not proved strong enough to hold on to it. Like his father before him, he’d been arrested; within twenty-four hours he was dead. Neither tale was one to give Anne comfort. What did stir in her such superstitious fright, however, was the fact that both men had held the title that was now Richard’s—Duke of Gloucester.
She shifted uneasily, burrowed deeper into the false security of the feather bed, taking care not to jostle Richard. Let him sleep awhile longer. It was little enough rest he’d had these four days past. Little rest and no time to grieve.
Upon hearing a Requiem Mass for Edward in the castle chapel, Richard had again taken White Surrey out onto the moors. Returning pale and shaken hours later, he’d sat down and written to Anthony Woodville at Ludlow, offering condolences to his young nephew and expressing the hope that they might rendezvous at some point on the journey south for a joint entry into London. After that, he’d written a stiff letter of sympathy to Elizabeth, and a carefully worded letter to the council, in which he vowed to be as loyal to Edward’s son as he’d been to Edward. He made it clear, however, that he expected to assume the protectorship of his nephew, in accordance with custom and Edward’s own wishes. He’d let Anne read it when he was through, and she assured him he’d struck just the right note, that the council would be sure to react favorably. Neither said what both were thinking: if the council meant to abide by Ned’s will, why had he not received some sort of official recognition by now?
Three days later the question had yet to be answered. There’d still been no word from Elizabeth, no word from his brother’s council. But at midday on Saturday, a second courier from Will Hastings had galloped across the drawbridge and into the inner bailey of the castle. If Will had previously hinted at unspecified dangers, he was now naming names with a vengeance. The Queen and her kindred meant to set aside the protectorship. They’d won over Rotherham, Ned’s Chancellor. Stanley seemed to be wavering. He needn’t tell Richard what would happen once they had the young King safely in their power. Richard must get to London as soon as he could, and he’d best make his escort a large one.
Anne had begun to shiver, reached for the coverlets and glanced over toward Richard’s side of the bed to make sure she’d not disturbed him. The bed was empty; she was alone. Seconds later, she was belting the sash of her bed robe, was kneeling by the bed to retrieve her shoes.
The sky above the keep was a pale pearl-grey, the castle towers aswirl in dawn vapors soon to be burned away by the rising sun. A few sleepy servants were up and about, blinking with surprise at sight of Anne’s tumbled hair and soft blue robe. She found the chapel deserted, still fragrant with the candles burned on Edward’s behalf. But in the great hall, she encountered a startled serving maid, and the girl pointed toward the corner stairway in answer to Anne’s urgent query.
The view from the battlements was a beautiful one, showed the sweep of dale and the distant silver of the River Cover. In May these hills would be carpeted with heather; in October, gold with bracken. Even in winter, there was a stark splendor to Wensleydale, but this was perhaps the loveliest time of the year, a soft green sea stretching as far as the eye could go.
Anne paused for a moment in the doorway to catch her breath, and to watch Richard unobserved. The severity of mourning garb did not suit him. Caught between the unrelieved drabness of a doublet of dark worsted and the blue-black thatch of hair, his face looked lost, pinched and bleached of all color. He’d yet to notice Anne; he was gazing out over the dale as if seeking to commit it to memory, to fix in his mind the way shadow and sun chased across the slopes, filled the valley with light.
“Richard.”
He turned at once. “Anne? Anne, what be wrong?”
She shook her head, came into his arms. “Nothing, love, nothing. It…it just frightened me to awaken and find you gone.”
“Surely you didn’t think I’d have departed without bidding you farewell?”
“It occurred to me that you might think it a kindness, to spare me that….”
“That would be no kindness, beloved,” he said, and she felt his mouth against her hair. “I couldn’t sleep, came up here to watch the sunrise.”
“Be you still determined to go against Will’s advice? Oh, love, reconsider. Take enough men with you to be safe, to give…”
He was shaking his head. “Anne, I cannot. To take an army south would be like tossing a torch into a haystack. I can think of no gesture more provocative, more likely to raise suspicions as to my intent. We’re on the very edge of the precipice, all of us. A boy King seems inevitably to serve as a lightning rod, to draw down disaster. I tell you, Anne, the very thought of a Woodville regency does chill me to the bone! We could see a civil war erupt over the boy that would make the feud between my father and Marguerite d’Anjou seem like petty squabbling.”
“But is that not all the more reason to heed Will, to take a large force with you?”
“Anne, I’ve no wish for martyrdom, have never yearned to walk unarmed into the lion’s den. If I thought it would quiet the capital and ease men’s minds, I’d take damned near all of Yorkshire with me. But it wouldn’t, would guarantee neither my own safety nor the stability of the realm. I cannot risk it; the stakes be too high.”
“Richard….” The words came to her lips of their own volition, could not be bitten back. “Richard, what is going to happen? What lies ahead for us?”
Raising her head from his chest, she saw in his face the struggle between his wish to reassure and his reluctance to lie. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I would that I could tell you otherwise, Anne, but I cannot. I just don’t know.”
Before departing York, Richard saw that Requiem Masses were said at St Peter’s for the repose of his brother’s soul. He saw to it, too, that the northern nobles and magnates swore public oath of allegiance to his nephew; and all the while, he struggled to make himself believe that Ned was truly dead and his own world in such jeopardy, grief and fear and an embittered illogical anger merging in his mind until they were inseparable and unrecognizable one from the other.
While still in York, Richard received a message of support from an unexpected quarter, from his cousin Harry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham. Buckingham offered to join Richard on his journey southward, offered, as well, to put a thousand men at Richard’s service. Richard was not long in dispatching a grateful reply. He would, indeed, welcome his cousin’s company. A courier from Anthony Woodville had just reached him, he explained to Buckingham, in response to his earlier request for a meeting. Anthony had suggested they rendezvous at the town of Northampton, and if it was agreeable to Buckingham, he, too, could join them there. But he must regretfully refuse Buckingham’s other offer. It was his intent to limit his escort to several hundred, and he requested that Buckingham do likewise.
For the first time in more than a week, Richard dared to let himself hope there might be a safe path through the quagmire that so suddenly had sprung up around him. Buckingham’s offer of support was heartening. But even more so was Anthony Woodville’s cordial cooperation. It contrasted strangely with Elizabeth’s continuing silence. Was it a straw in the wind, a sign that the Woodvilles might yet come to terms with the reality of his protectorship?
After two days in York, Richard began moving slowly southward, in the company of northern knights and gentry. With him were Lords Scrope, Greystoke, and Fitz-Hugh, and his boyhood friends. Stopping at Pontefract and Nottingham, they reached Northampton on Tuesday afternoon, April 29, only to be told that the young King had passed through the town hours before. Soon after, Anthony Woodville rode back with a small escort. His royal nephew had pushed ahead to the village of St
ony Stratford, he explained easily, fearing that there’d not be accommodations enough in Northampton for his own men and those in Richard’s party.
Richard stood at the window, watching Anthony Woodville’s servants light his way across the marketplace toward his inn. He watched until the lantern-glow faded away into darkness, and then turned to face the waiting men.
“Well?” he said dryly. “What did you think of the mummery?”
Their faces were accurate mirrors of his own skepticism. It was left to John Scrope to put it into words, to say with a soldier’s oath, “Do they think us utter fools? God’s wrath, parliaments have been held here in Northampton! There be inns aplenty, easily room to spare for our own men and the royal train. No, that dog won’t hunt.”
“It did cross my mind,” Richard admitted, “that Stony Stratford be fourteen miles closer to London.”
“You think, Dickon, that they mean to send the boy on ahead, not to wait on you?”
“I don’t know, Francis. But that excuse for not stopping here in Northampton be as thin as gossamer. It does make me wonder why, in truth it does.”
Richard moved back to the window. Below, all was still, dark and deceptively tranquil. Against his will, he found himself recalling that the village of Olney lay not ten miles to the east, Olney where Ned had been forced to give himself up to his Neville cousin. It was not a memory ever to fade; Richard could still see the sixteen-year-old boy he’d been, standing alone in that sun-drenched street and marveling that all could somehow seem so normal even as time ran out. He felt much the same way tonight.
Behind him, he heard John Scrope say gruffly, “I hope to Christ you’ve not blundered, Dickon, in keeping our numbers so small.”
Was Scrope right? Had he erred on the side of caution? If so, God help them all; that was not a mistake a man would get to make twice.