B008257PJY EBOK (16 page)

Richard slammed down his goblet, splashing ruby wine on the pillows. “Cease, Anne! Stop this torture!” He averted his face, pressed a hand to his brow. After a long silence he looked back at her and took her cold hands into his own. “Ned is gone, and the pain will never fade, for either of us. Every man prays for a son, but you were all I ever wanted, all I begged God for during those accursed years when our families broke with one another. I never asked for a son. Only you. Ned was a boon, a beautiful gift loaned us by heaven for too short a time. Aye, and now that he’s gone, the days are black for it. But, dear heart, without you at my side I could not go on—could not—” His voice cracked. He pressed his head to her breast.

Tears blurred Anne’s vision as she stroked the dark hair. She wanted to say,
But you must go on, my beloved. Help me to find you love, so I don’t leave you uncomforted.

“I could not—” Richard said again in a choked voice. Then it seemed to Anne that the fire dimmed and the candles flickered in the room and the shadows darkened, for she heard dread words uttered so faintly, she might have imagined them:
I will not
. She quivered. Bending down over him, she lifted his face in her hands as she used to do with Ned when he had been frightened. Looking deep into the heart-breaking dark eyes, she said, “Promise me—swear to me, on Ned’s blessed soul—that you will never,
never
give up. Never, Richard. Not even if you must go on—” she hesitated, “alone.
Swear it!
”

Richard gazed up at the enormous violet eyes dark in the candlelight, pleading with such urgency, such desperation. He could not cause her more pain. He moistened his cracked lips.

“I shall not give up. I swear it,” he said. “I must live to make Tudor pay.”

~ * ~

Chapter 16

“The vermin voices here

May buzz so loud—we scorn them, but they sting.”

Richard spent two anxious months in Nottingham waiting for an invasion that never came. Finally in November, concluding that Tudor no longer posed a problem until the advent of good weather in the spring, he returned to London.

Royal bugles blared and bells rang for Tierce, but the crowds were respectfully quiet when Richard and Anne, clad in their dark mourning garb, approached Bishopsgate, followed by the royal procession of peers, knights, bishops, servants, and rumbling baggage carts. As always the air near London was thick with the smell of sweat, horse droppings, and butchered animals, and the skies that hung over the city were grey.

As if signalling the ill tidings that undoubtedly await
, thought Richard dully.

On this chilly morning a bitter wind blew, bearing a dank, fishy smell from the river and the shops along Fish Street. He glanced at Anne with concern. Near the city she had transferred from her litter to her chestnut palfrey to make a more dignified entrance. She smiled at him between her furs, and he was reassured. At least her palfrey bore her sedately, not like White Surrey who, aware of the eyes on him, held up his elegant head and pranced majestically before the throng as befitted his royal status. Richard looked back to find the mayor and the aldermen riding to meet him in their ceremonial scarlet. He listened politely to the mayor’s welcome and made the appropriate responses. The ceremony over, Richard invited him to ride at his side. “How goes it in my absence?” he inquired.

The tall, gaunt mercer shrank in his saddle. “My lord King, there’s been a… a… spot of trouble.”

Richard stared at him.

Disconcerted, the man lost his nerve and began to babble incoherently, “The—here—these—some—”

His nerves strained by the worries and work of the last months, Richard snapped, “A pox on this fiddle-faddle! Out with it, man! What trouble?”

“Placards,” blurted the mayor, and swallowed.

“What do these placards say?” demanded Richard.

They turned into Watling Street. The mayor cleared his throat, launched into an explanation. “The p-placards have appeared all over the city—well, not exactly all over, but everywhere—well, not exactly everywhere—but everywhere that matters—on church doors. Mostly. T-these placards—” he cleared his throat again— “they bear a certain rhyme—”

Richard’s prayed for patience.

“There—t-there it is again!” The mayor gasped with relief. “Speak of the devil, there it is!” He pointed to St. Paul’s Cathedral where a crowd had gathered around a black-cowled monk reading a parchment nailed to one of the doors in the porch recess.

Richard turned to the body of knights behind him. “Fetch that placard!” he barked. One of them broke into a gallop, cantered up the steps of St. Paul’s, and before the murmuring crowd, ripped the placard from the door and galloped back. “What does it say?” demanded Richard.

The knight paled. “Sire—I—”

Richard tore it from his hands angrily, and read:

The Cat, the Rat, and Lovell our dog,

Rule all England under a hog.

His hand shook, his face burned. He crushed the parchment in his fist. Somewhere in the crowd, someone tittered. Bile rose to his mouth and his pulse pounded furiously in his ears.

“Who dares?” Richard hissed through white lips.

The mayor swallowed. “We believe it is a Wiltshire m-man. A certain W-William Colyngbourne, an agent of Henry Tudor’s. He was once an officer of your royal lady mother, the Duchess of York, Sire.”

“I know him,” Richard said tersely. Colyngbourne had been dismissed from his post and replaced by one of his own followers when Richard took the Crown. “Has he been apprehended?”

“Not yet, Sire.”

“I want him apprehended,” said Richard in a deadly voice.

“Aye, Sire! And he shall be, he shall. He’s eluded us s-since July when he posted the f-first of these doggerels, but we’re close now. Close, indeed.”

“July?” Richard demanded. “Why was I not informed?”

The mayor coloured. “Sire, you—it did not seem—you were—it was—”

Anne leaned over and touched Richard’s sleeve. She understood what the man was trying to say. Richard had not been informed because of Ned; they had not the heart. She met his eyes. Richard’s rancour drained. “Lord Mayor, I thank you for your consideration of our grief.” With a heart that weighed like stone in his breast, Richard nudged White Surrey forward.

The cavalcade neared Westminster. The holy song of the monks floated to him from the Abbey doors to the east. To the west, the rhythmic clatter of metal resounded from the composing room of William Caxton’s printing shop, and the sharp smell of wet ink wafted on the air. His eyes fixed on the sign of the Red Pale. Sixteen months had passed since his coronation. The sign was swinging in the wind, as it had on that day when he’d walked to the Abbey with his heart filled with joy. Ahead had lain the future; dreams that could be worked into action; King Arthur’s court that could be brought back to England for the glory of God.

Live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the King—

Nothing had turned out as he had dreamed.

~ * ~

With slow, gentle strokes, Anne caressed Ned’s little hound, Sir Tristan, who had curled up and fallen asleep in her lap. “We should be enemies, yet you’re my dearest friend,” she said, watching Elizabeth’s fair head as she bent intently over her embroidery.

Elizabeth of York slid the needle through her tapestry and knotted the wine silk thread. She broke it with her teeth and smiled. “It seems another lifetime when I thought of you as an enemy. How strange life is.”

“If we loved as easily as we hated, we could change the world,” said Anne.

“You and His Grace have loved one another since childhood, they say.” There was a wistful note in Elizabeth’s voice.

“Aye, since I was seven years old… I remember the first time Richard came to Middleham. It was soon after his brother Edward was crowned. He was so young… so unsure of himself… and frightened.”
And God help us
, she thought,
I see that same look now
. He’s worked his heart out doing good, but his enemies lie about him, twist everything to blacken him, and give him no credit for the loyalty that is his strongest trait. And all those wounding slanders have shaken his belief in himself and destroyed what little pleasure might have been his.

Elizabeth’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Sometimes, though I could be mistaken—” she broke off in embarrassment. “No, ’tis foolishness.”

“Tell me what you were going to say, Elizabeth.”

Scarlet stained Elizabeth’s cheeks. “Truly, it was nothing, my lady.”

“I must know.”

Elizabeth’s fingers slackened around her embroidery. She turned her gaze on the river and a faraway look came into her eyes. “It’s just that… sometimes… I see an odd expression on his face, when he thinks no one is looking.”

“Aye?”

“Fear, and doubt, Madame. Forgive me, but I’ve seen that in his eyes, and it wounds me to the heart.”

Anne caught her breath. After a moment she reached out and gently touched Elizabeth’s gold hair, gathered beneath a silver circlet and gauzy veil. Once her own hair had been that bright. “Aye, child, I know.”

“And I fear for him,” Elizabeth whispered.

“Because you love him,” Anne said.

The girl drew away in horror. “No, my lady, no!”

“You must not be ashamed of loving.”

“I’d never do anything to hurt you— I’d give my life before I’d hurt you—” Elizabeth fell to her knees, seized Anne’s hands. “Madame, pray believe me! You’ve been so good to me, I’d never repay you with such ingratitude!” Anne was about to reply when she felt suddenly faint. On the wind she had caught the sharp smell of the river, a foul pungent odour that summoned into her mind the memory of the sea voyage to Calais when she’d fled England for her life, and the filthy sailor who had coughed blood into her face. She pushed herself up from her chair on trembling legs. Sir Tristan jumped off with a start. The doctors had been baffled by her illness. Now she knew what she had.

The White Plague.

She clutched her stomach, assailed by a wave of nausea. Elizabeth leapt to her feet, seized her by the shoulders. “My lady, what is it?” she cried.

With a nod of her head, Anne indicated a far window that stood open to the rose garden. “There,” she managed. Leaning heavily on Elizabeth’s arm, she made her way slowly to the silver cushioned seat. There was no dark river odour here, only the sweet scent of roses and gillyflowers. She patted the empty space beside her.

“Why must you think you’ve harmed with your love, child?” Anne murmured when she felt strong enough to speak again. “All we take with us when we die is the love we leave behind.”

Elizabeth regarded her with a puzzled expression.

“Love is all there is, dear child. All that matters… all that remains to warm the hearts we leave behind when we ourselves depart this world. We, in turn, take with us their love when we go.” She looked out at the garden and her eyes fell on a distant tree. A majestic chestnut with wide, sprawling branches. Beneath such stately boughs she’d picnicked with Ned, and once, long ago, held court with Richard in their mythical childhood kingdom of Avalon. Her voice sank to a bare whisper. “Ned has my love, and I keep his— here—” She laid a hand to her bosom. “As long as I live, I’ll remember his love—” A terrible pain seared her lungs, cutting off her breath. She gasped; the garden wavered in her sight.

“Madame, madame!” Elizabeth cried. “Are you all right?”

Through the darkness that engulfed her, Anne felt the girl’s strong arms encircle her, hold her steady. Aye, Elizabeth was her gift to Richard. With Elizabeth’s love and strength, she would rescue him from his hopelessness and despair, as surely as he had rescued her from that kitchen in Cheapside years ago.

The nausea, which had been coming on with increasing frequency of late, faded, but her breathing was still shallow and her chest hurt with each intake of air.

“’Tis nothing… merely a… passing pain.” She spoke haltingly to conserve her energy. “Now… I’ve something to say… Then you must make me a promise.” Again that resemblance to herself. Though the child had her father’s eyes, with emotion they tended to darken, so that they sometimes seemed violet, like her own.

“Anything, Madame.”

“Stop… calling… me ‘Madame’,” she breathed, “I am Anne.”

“Aye, my dear lady Anne.”

“We… must plan… for the future.”

“The future?”

“Yours… and Richard’s.”

Elizabeth stared at her with uncomprehending shock.

“Daily I lose strength… It’ll not be long now, I know,” Anne whispered, her voice a bare tremor. “Some days are… difficult. If I could be at ease about Richard, I could let go… You’re right, dear Elizabeth. He is so alone…” Her eyes returned to the tree and misted. “Alone with so much hate around him—” She broke off. She knew now what she had always suspected. She had an ill-divining spirit. The shadows she’d seen pressing around them on their coronation were real enough, not imagined. And the heaviness she felt surrounding Richard now would not be dispelled, except with love.

Elizabeth took her hand, giving comfort. She lifted her eyes to Elizabeth’s face. “He’ll… not survive, Elizabeth… without love… You must comfort him… help him. He’ll need you…”

“For the King there is only you,” Elizabeth cried. “He’s not even aware I exist.”

“Then… we must change that. Make… him aware. He’s had much on his mind… but he wishes the Christmas festivities to be especially bright this year—”
Especially bright, to bury sorrow past bearing.
“We shall make him notice you… Aye, Elizabeth, you’re what… Richard needs… What England needs.”

“But I’m his niece—we cannot marry!”

“The Pope will grant a dispensation… if the price is high enough…” For a while after Ned’s death, she’d thought God was punishing her for having wed without a dispensation. She had long since rejected that notion. Though she knew she was edging perilously close to heresy, she simply couldn’t accept the idea of a vengeful God. God was not Anger. He was Love. But Popes were men, and men were tainted with greed. “In truth, your blood bond… matters not. I have come to believe… that God sees no sin in love… except where that love brings pain to others.” She paused to catch her breath. “Together… you shall bear him children and… turn his crown of sorrows… into a wreath of roses.”