The Maiden and the Unicorn (41 page)

The illustrious lords' departure for Tours was delayed by several days of thanksgiving and rejoicing following the birth of the longed-for dauphin. Only the townsfolk were grudging in their celebrations. Their royal master had given orders that no more dwellings were to be permitted, confirming the gossip that he had plans to divert trade to Tours to prevent visitations of the plague threatening his precious heir.

It was also rumoured before the lords set out upriver that the King was writing to the Bitch of Anjou offering her son, Edouard of Lancaster, the prestigious office of godfather to the child.

Such calculated flattery achieved its goal, as Margery discovered two days later, when George of Clarence arrived back from Tours without the Earl and stormed into the Countess of Warwick's antechamber. His face, red and perspiring, looked ugly against his gilt velvet hat and he was heavy with the odour of sweat and horses. Normally he was fastidious in his person except when his breath was soused with wine, so this unusual appearance was sufficient to make Margery clumsily drop the little wooden bishop she was about to move. Anne retrieved it from the rushes, handing it back to her with a questioning glance.

"Your grace," snapped the Countess disdainfully, not even bothering to look up from her tapestry frame, "you might at least have shown some delicacy by changing your apparel first."

Isabella had sprung to her feet, her countenance pale. "Hush, mother! Something has happened. A riding accident? Is Father safe?"

The Duke unclipped his riding cloak, bestowing road dust like largesse upon his mother-in-law. "Oh, no accident! He is on his way back here now." They were used to his flippancy but there was an understatement in his voice, an unlooked-for control that told them he was really angry.

"Not news of a Burgundian attack upon the ships?" Margery inquired anxiously.

"No, I could tolerate
that."
The ice blue eyes fixed hers meaningfully before he held out his gloved palm to his wife. "Bella, you will come with me. Find me some muscat, Meg, and wait upon us." He gave a curt nod of his head to the Countess. "I shall leave Father Warwick to break the good news to you, madam. I hope the telling of it plaguey well chokes him!"

"I always thought Cicely could have brought up her sons with better manners," huffed the Countess loudly as the door closed with unnecessary noise behind him. "Oh, do not look askance at me, the two of you. Go, Margery! Obey him but do not use the good wine that my lord was presented with at Valognes. In the humour he is in, anything that will slide easily down his throat will suffice."

"Vinegar?" Anne asked.

* * *

The Duke had already dismissed Blanche when Margery entered with the wine. Only Ankarette had tarried, deliberately taking her time to pack a darned veil into a chest. George snarled at her and she left reluctantly, pulling a face at Margery who decided it was best to set the wine upon the small side table and withdraw as swiftly as possible.

"You can stay, Meg. You do not gossip like the other bitches. Pour us all a cup, for the love of Heaven, I am that parched."

"Tell us what has bitten you!" snapped Isabella.

"Your father," he grabbed the first full cup, "your poxy father is bidden by the French whoreson to Angers to meet the bloody Bitch of Anjou. While you were swanning around the gardens here discussing the height of your headdresses, that spider has been persuading your father into considering an alliance. That was why they have been dithering around with these talks—they were waiting for the answer as to whether the old hag would consent to see him."

"And she has
?" Margery was incredulous.

"Oh, with great reluctance apparently—the only good tidings in the entire squalid business. All these plaguey secret discussions. No wonder the French wanted me to busy myself with hunting. And I never suspected." He glared at his wife who stood still before him, her fingers in a steeple against her lips. "Did you not have any inkling, Bella? Did you not ask him what was going on? You have been at the chateau the whole time, for Heaven's sake!"

It was the Duke's own fault, thought Margery, sipping her wine with more control. He had been only too willing to ride off hunting boar with the other young men and come back to brag about the killing over supper. She had watched the French courtiers fêting him like a dauphin. In retrospect, it was so blatant.

Isabella was being disappointingly incredulous. "I—I will not believe it. Father would not even think of such a thing!" She lifted her cup of wine from the table with a shaking hand. "He drove the Bitch into exile in the first place. There are torrents of blood between them. Besides, Father has sworn to make you king, George. You know he wants his grandson on the throne."

"Grandson
, madam?" The Duke slammed the winecup out of her hand. Its contents spattered across Isabella's gown. "
What grandson?
If you had welcomed me to your bed lately with kisses instead of squeamish excuses, mayhap your father would not be contemplating an alliance with our enemy." She blinked at him in shock. "Can you not understand, you simpleton? This rebellion is not just an old man's petulance because Ned has outgrown his counsel and married the Woodville witch. It's not even that your father is hungry for his old power again, it is much more than that. It is an obsession, Bella, a gnawing hatred against Ned and a desire to have Neville blood wearing the crown. And it can even be Lancastrian seed, providing it's a Neville womb. Have I shocked you two innocents? By Christ Almighty, the Duke my father, God rest his soul, would turn in his grave if he knew of this treachery." He viciously seized up a footstool and hurled it at the window. Amazingly, both the stool and expensive pane held.

Isabella frowned down at her spoilt gown. It was hard, after all, to defend the indefensible. "Goodness, my lord, as you say it may come to nothing and by then I may be with child." She sent Margery a look that forbade her to leave them alone together.

George turned and swooped, his fingers curling clawlike about her shoulders, his words blasts of air in her face. "But he
has agreed
to meet the Bitch, you foolish woman! He told me so. He is to go to her father René's castle at Angers." With an oath, he flung himself away from her, slapping a fist angrily into the palm of his other hand.

"Could it be a trap?" offered Isabella, glancing at Margery for verbal support. "You do not think that King René will seize Father and you will have to ransom him?"

"I hope he does," exclaimed the Duke. "The Angevins can lock him up and throw away the key!"

Isabella was struggling to stay calm, smoothing her skirts about her in the way her mother had when she was perturbed. She tried another approach to soothe him. "But mayhap Father is just planning to merely use the Lancastrians. We all know that he is the most popular and powerful man that England has seen in decades. Why, he and my uncle Montague can bring ten thousand men to the field. Perhaps when we are all back in England, he may render the Bitch and her people helpless unless they do as he says." She nodded, satisfied by her own arguments. "In any case, if there are any Lancastrians left in England, I hardly imagine they will want to fight behind my father."

Yes, he probably orphaned half of them, thought Margery wryly with a lack of filial loyalty. In any case, Isabella's argument was too full of ifs and buts. Would all the Neville retainers blindly follow their lord?

It was not easy to reckon up how many of the nobility might take up their swords against Ned if the odds were sufficiently tipped against him. After nearly ten years of silence, no intelligent lord would turn traitor to their king unless there was land to be gained. And would all the closet Lancastrians crawl out from under their stones if their mighty enemy Warwick now offered to lead them? She doubted it.

Yet... yet such a triple alliance of France, Lancaster and the Nevilles, if it were possible, would threaten Ned more fiercely than any previous rebellion. Warwick and Margaret d'Anjou! It was what Huddleston had hinted at on the morning after their wedding night. Huddleston who always seemed to know more than he should. She set that painful worry aside for the time being.

And where did a Lancastrian alliance leave the seething young man before her? That was a point! Her only consolation was that perhaps she would be able to send some promising news to Ned after all.

"What are you going to do, your grace?" she asked the Duke. He shrugged sullenly, his smile grim.

"Are we expected to go to Angers and meet Queen Margaret too?" Isabella was scowling.

The Duke glanced sideways at his wife. "Now that question at least shows some intelligence, madam. Kiss the Queen of Lancaster's bloody hand! By St George, I hope not." He held out his cup for Margery to refill it. "I do not think I could stomach it." He paced and turned. "What a shame that I lack Father Warwick's obsequiousness. Perhaps he has forgotten what she did to his father's head, hacked it off and stuck it on York's Micklegate next to my father's and brother's."

"Stop it!" shrieked Isabella. "Anyone would think I cut off your father's head! Why do you not shout at my father instead? But I will wager you have not dared. For all your pretty speeches, he still can best you. Do you think I condone this? Do you think I have forgotten how much that woman hates us? Oh, how can he even contemplate making peace with the bloodthirsty hag after what she did?" She took refuge upon the bed, miserably cradling her arms across her bosom.

The Duke watched her unmoved, his mouth in an ugly sneer, but Isabella could match him for petulance. She blinked up at the ceiling, tears dripping down her cheeks. "He promised us England. He promised to make me queen." Her lower lip quivered like a precocious child's who has just had a sweetmeat removed from her fist.

"So the hammer has at last hit the anvil!" muttered the Duke, his eyes heavenwards in exasperation.

"If this should come to pass," Isabella's voice grew softer and she leaned her cheek against the bedpost, "if... then all this travail has been for naught and we have cast away our lands and our poor babe for just a dream." Her small hand curled forlornly around the twisted wood. More tears pearled upon her cheeks and splashed upon her bodice. "Oh George, he would have lived if we had not fled England. I know he would have."

Margery waited for the Duke to storm out but he surprised her. The Plantagenet face that was usually so full of scorn softened and the fury melted like candle grease.

"Bella!" He crumpled to his knees before her, his fingers upon her arms and buried his head in her lap. "What shall we do?"

Margery, ashamed at playing witness, hurriedly let herself out, squeaking as she collided with Ankarette who materialised from the shadows like a player on cue. "Are we needed?"

Margery shook her head firmly, grabbed Ankarette's arm and dragged her away from the door. "Is my lord father returned yet?"

"Thomas Burdett reckons they were about four miles or so ahead of the rest. What is amiss? Have my lord and his sulkiness fallen foul of each other at Tours? Come on, surprise me!"

Margery told her the news, seeing in Ankarette's aghast face how her own must have appeared.

"So that's how the wind is blowing." Ankarette sucked in her cheeks. "Who would have laid gold on that wager a year ago? No good will come of it, you mark my words. So, is the duke-who-would-be-king spewing out his venom at our little duchess or is he wanting her to pat him on the head and sing a lullaby?"

"They are both feeling very sorry for themselves."

"And only themselves to blame. Well, I think we have a duty to warn the Countess and Lady Anne of what has befallen. They will be grateful for the time to compose themselves. Come, Margery."

"No, you tell them." Ankarette would actually enjoy the task. "I will stay here. If he is drinking, he may turn on her again." She watched her friend strut off gleefully on her mission and sat down on her palliasse in the antechamber. About her, the chateau was strangely quiet, as if the air itself had taken a watchful breath.

Neither the chorus of dogs barking a short while later nor the hooves thundering up into the great stableyard lured her out to see her father's return. She could not bear to discover whether Huddleston was with the Earl. Like the Duke of Clarence, she was passé.

* * *

That evening no one would have guessed at George Plantagenet's inner unhappiness. In the common gaze, at the high table, he appeared to be in excellent humour, albeit his colour was heightened and there was a colder brilliance about him. Margery caught him watching her as she was whirled past in a set. She danced all evening, accepting any partner, conscious of her husband's deliberate absence.

The Duke partnered her as the candles burnt low and deftly swept her outside to the corbelled walk under the hard stars. Below the castle walls, the lights and laughter of the taverns were disturbing. Was that where Huddleston lurked or was he accepting the servile smiles of the Levallois girl across her family's small-table like some heathen lord?

"Meg?" Margery was uncomfortable in George's presence but duty to Ned compelled her to take the risk.

"I have been hobbled, Meg," he whispered when he was sure they were alone. "This whole business has been a feast of misrule and I the butt of the jest. King Louis has no more intention of making me a king than living his life in a hovel. He wants Margaret d'Anjou back on the throne. Unless we agree, there will be no loans."