The Maiden and the Unicorn (53 page)

A dry laugh made her blood run cold. "The view is excellent from here," drawled a silky voice.

Margery's eyes snapped open.

Richard was struggling to stand while his Irish deerhound was furiously trying to hold him down for a thorough lick of devotion, and the King of France was leaning back against the outer wall, his arms crossed. The royal smile upon Margery as she sat up, her fingers sprawled defensively across her naked cleavage, was admiring. She scrambled onto her knees and grabbed the cote to her bosom, only to have Errour bound across to her to launder her cheek and shoulders.

King Louis jerked his head at the Scots guard at his side to leave them.

"Not what we had expected, and yet..." He gave a Gallic shrug and left the wall. "Your dog appreciates your taste in a woman."

Richard began to have sympathy for snared rabbits. How long had the King been playing the voyeur?

"
Beau sire
," he murmured calmly, discreetly tightening the points that had been strained an instant ago. Wonderful, was it not, how the thought of being tortured had doused his ardour? He winced inwardly as the royal fingers grabbed his wife's chin and forced her face upwards.

"You think she will please the usurper Edward still?" The regal gaze marched over Margery's flushed face and the King twitched the garment out of her astonished fingers, savouring her thrusting breast.

By Christ's mercy, Richard prayed quickly, let her not look my way for guidance. He held his breath, sensing her hesitation between indignation and compliance. To his relief, she gave the King a ravishing smile and impishly held out her hand for him to help her to her feet.

"Why do you not answer, Richard?" she trilled, glancing over a provocative shoulder at him, her eyelashes moving as fast as birdwings taking off, her other hand tickling Errour's back above his tail.

"
You
need reassurance?" He let his voice drip sarcasm and she smiled back. Without her mocking eyes moving off his face, she slowly began to fasten the fill of silk back across her bosom.

The King's eyes flickered suspiciously from one to the other, the oily mousy hair barely moved in the wind. Richard tried not to hold his breath. She had overplayed; the spider would want to test her between the sheets, did she not realise that? Or...? The ugly thought that his wife might have already passed examination sprang across his mind.

"My wife leaves for England within the hour with your majesty's permission." He bowed belatedly but the King's attention would not be drawn away.

"You are cleverer than we thought," answered his most Christian Majesty. It seemed he was speaking to Richard and yet he was still studying Margery. "And being a King, Monsieu 'uddleston," the dark eyes swerved to pinion him, "is quite different to being a commoner or even Dauphin. We can have anything we want..." Richard noted the cruel pause, "and we will have this union between the Earl of Warwick and the Queen of England. She is arriving today but you know that,
n'est-ce pas, monsieur,
and you know also what she will ask." He drew a fingernail lightly down Margery's cheek and poked his forefinger under her chin like a knife, jerking her head higher. "You know the two greatest currencies, Monsieur 'uddleston?"

"
Yes,
beau sire
."

"Name them!"

"Money and fear."

"Exactly." The royal smile would have tortured babies. "We wish you every success in the usurper's bed, madame. Continue your farewell, monsieur." He handed Margery back the garment and disappeared round the curve of the tower as quietly as he had come. They did not even hear his footsteps. Richard counted ten heartbeats and then followed the wall of the tower towards the courtyard. The King indeed had gone, the dog at his heels like a final insult. Richard came back to Margery. Her shoulders were heaving as she stared unseeing across the valley.

She whipped round on him and flung his clothing at him. "I feel contaminated, degraded, sullied, spiritually ravished, anything you please."

"You mean by me?" He thrust his arms angrily through the split sleeves.

"No, I do not mean by you!" she snapped. "Can you not feel the threads of his web sticking to you? It reaches to Ned's court, be sure of that.
Go to Millom?
His agents will track me down and tip poison in my wine." She swept along the rampart, every inch of her angry.

"No!" Richard halted her. "Come here, your bodice is awry." Sullenly she came back to him. "Listen to me." With husbandly concern for propriety, he undid the silk triangle and refastened it to conceal the tiny buttons underneath the broad "v" of her collar. Her eyes upon his face were wells of cynicism.

Why was it that each time he made love to her, it gave her the confidence to be disobedient and provoke him? An unkinder husband might lash the back of his hand across her cheek. His fingers gripped her shoulders, his mouth tightening at how rigidly she held herself. He tried to staunch the rising panic he sensed within her and to divert the direction of his own misgivings. "You do not have to do any of it. No, listen, woman! Once you are with King Edward, you will be safe. Tell him you need an armed guard and a foodtaster."

"The safest place in England is in his bed at Westminster. We both know that, do we not,
Monsieur 'uddleston?"
Surprisingly, she had King Louis's accent to perfection. It was her best attempt at French so far.

"If I had wanted a wasp for a wife, I could not have done better." Richard refused to be drawn. He thrust her from him and picking up his hat, tried to smooth out the woeful feather. An apologetic whining eased the silence. Errour had reappeared. In panic, Margery rushed round into the courtyard, wondering if the King had returned but there were only two of the sentries sauntering back to the guardroom. "You had better go and prepare." Richard calmly caught up with her, relieved that the dog had returned alone.

Margery had recovered sufficiently to be suspicious. "What is your wonderful Queen going to ask?"

He deliberately watched a hawk circling against the clouds beyond her head. "Nothing if you are gone from here like an honest traveller. Come!" He put his hand beneath her elbow to steer her round the tower wall and across the courtyard to the logis but she caught at his hanging sleeves and forced him to look at her. "Oh Jesu, Richard, stop playing with words. I am afraid of the King of France. He puts people in cages."

His green eyes showed kindness at last. "Yes, I know."

Chapter 24

Richard returned from the forest at sundown. The drawbridge was winched up as the echoes of Comet's hooves died beneath the archway. He was not expecting Matthew to materialise from the shadows and grab the bridle to bring him to a halt. Richard swore and seized him by his collar. "What in God's name—"

"My lord of Oxford ordered the mistress back. We met him on the road. Only your brothers, sir, were given leave to continue."

"The Devil take him! Did my wife give them letters or any parting gift?"

"No, sir." That at least was a relief; his brothers were not in danger. "And my lord of Warwick requires your presence straightway."

He found the Nevilles, white-faced and silent within the Earl's apartments. Margery, tired, raised her head bleakly. It was possible they had been haranguing her but he rather doubted it.

Clarence swung round to face him, simmering with ill temper. "You can break the news to Huddleston, Warwick, but I rather suspect he knows already." He circled Richard like a fox sniffing out prey. "Tell us, brother-in-law, is the old hag you admire so untrusting or is it my lords of Oxford and Pembroke who have advised her so cunningly?"

Richard ignored him, shifting his gaze to the Earl's adamantine gaze. "Why has my wife returned, my lord?" he asked coldly.

The Earl held out a letter to him. The wax seal, heavy upon it, was Queen Margaret's.

Anne spared him the bother of reading. "Because we sisters, and that includes Margery, are to be hostages to the Bitch while Father and George slaughter Ned and Dickon." She glowered at her father.

"And Mother stays as well," snapped Isabella, from the window, her face ashen. "A wonderful alliance, is it not, Richard?"

"I protest, my lord!" Having scanned the letter, he startled them all with an uncharacteristic but calculated lack of control. "I deserve some say in this matter. Margery may be your daughter but she is my wife and I do not agree to this."

"Ha!" sneered Clarence, waggling his face near Richard's. "I
deserve some say
!" he mimicked. "Mayhap Margaret d'Anjou does not trust you either, Richard Huddleston, despite the hand-licking. How do you manage? Do you slobber on her left hand while Father Warwick licks her right?"

"You treacherous cur!" Richard drew back his fist and launched it at the jeering mouth.

"That will do!" shrieked the Countess, coming between them with a swiftness that was rare for her. Richard's fist hit empty air as she set a calming hand upon his shoulder and looked back at her lord. "I wish we had never left England." Her voice was serrated with bitterness as she took the letter from Richard, and challenged her husband. "If you disobey these terms, my lord, she will not make an alliance with you and if she does not, King Louis will cease to support us. We shall be destitute, my lord, but will it matter? Is it so important to you to risk those who love you most?"

Warwick's expression hardened further before their eyes. He paced to the window and turned. "Understand this, every one of you. I have no intention of giving up now that an army awaits me at Tours. I can retake England within a matter of weeks. By Heaven, all I require of you, mesdames, is a month of patience."

Not one of his daughters answered and the Countess averted her gaze with a deep sigh.

Richard broke the silence curtly. "My lord Earl speaks as though England will come wagging its tail the moment he whistles. The campaign may take months. King Edward has won every battle he has fought and Gloucester is now a man."

To his left, Anne gave a painful sigh. Warwick scowled at his daughter and raised his furious hands to them all. "Enough! It is decided. In any case, mesdames, you do not have to be hostages at Angers. I shall change the terms and insist that King Louis be your keeper. So you have nothing to fear now. I would trust him with my life.

It was Clarence who answered venomously. "Would you now? And would you trust him with mine? Christ Almighty, you are a walking wonder, my noble lord. You have made me party to this unnatural alliance without even inviting me to the table and now you expect me to meekly comply with these foul terms. Where is the crown you swore to give me? You are a bloody traitor, Warwick, your promises are paper and lies dribble from your lips."

"Pah, a pox on the lot of you!" Warwick snarled and stormed out.

* * *

The only person who felt at ease with her was Richard's dog, reflected Margery sadly next morning, wrapping her arms around Errour's friendly head. Even his soulful eyes, reproachful that he was chained, saddened her, and one of the kennelboys had crassly informed her that large dogs rarely lived beyond a few years.

The news that she was to be a hostage had terrified her. Why should Queen Margaret bother to include her? She doubted her father would care now if she was left behind or not. Was it because the Queen's agents knew she had spoken with de Commynes and kept private company with the Duke of Clarence?

Her fears grew hourly. If the Duke's letter was found among her possessions, they would hang her. If only she were rid of it! In vain she flaunted the secret token, her St Catherine wheel brooch, proclaiming that she possessed the message, but no one had left instructions for her.

Her other sorrow was that Huddleston was clearly displeased she had not left. He had not spoken to her since her return yesterday and she wanted to resolve matters with him and at least thank him for arguing with her father about the hostage matter. To be with him was becoming a compulsion; to confide in him, a temptation.

She told herself that it was because she was becoming desperate with the knowledge she carried and the desire to exonerate herself that, like the barber who whispered: "King Midas has ass's ears" to the river reeds, she wanted to be free of secrets. If only she might trust him. Much as he angered her, Margery wanted to make her peace with him before the invasion army left. They might never set eyes on each other again.