The Maiden and the Unicorn (57 page)

This was the man who had vowed devotion to the Lancastrian Queen. The husband who had agreed to take King Louis's gold. The lover who was never open with her, never set his affection upon the scales to be measured.

"No!" she exclaimed. "I do not follow you and there is nothing to give!
Nothing
!"

The shackles of his fingers loosened. "I trusted you, lady. And for what thanks? Horns on my head and intimate favours so chastely given. Go to perdition, Margery Huddleston, for I have done with you!" He flung her back against the barrel containing Errour's bedding and stooped to retrieve her headdress. "How well this becomes you," he sneered, moving the gauze and satin through his fingers like a rosary. "A pretty, insubstantial nothingness. Here, wench, have it back! And you will not need this again." Plucking St Catherine brooch off her bodice with such ferocity that it ripped the fabric, he ground it beneath his spurred heel and left her.

Sobbing, Margery snatched up her veil and battered brooch and stumbled to her feet, her back bruised and aching from the fall. Errour whined, licking her hand. It was only when one of the blushing kennelboys came across to offer assistance that she found sufficient dignity to leave.

Alys greeted her in the Nevilles' tiring-women's bedchamber, apologetic at the strewn linen and trinkets as Margery stared about her with mounting horror. "It was the master. He had mislaid something. Why, my lady..." Margery threw herself sobbing into her maidservant's arms.

"Oh, Alys, even my headress."

Chapter 26

There were no words long enough, short enough, worthy to curse with. Margery's fury was as sore as an unlanced boil, while the object of her wrath was safely on his way to Honfleur. A Judas indeed, kissing her only to search her person, having come fresh from ransacking her possessions. God deliver him to Hell! If he was truly loyal to York, then it was apparent he had never considered her worthy of his trust. While if he was a servant to Queen Margaret then... Jesu, she had come so close to telling him.

That was the problem. Whose side was Richard Huddleston on? The Queen's, her father's, Ned's or merely his own? Was he the dog that waited until the lions had torn each other to pieces before he moved in and lapped up the blood?

Nothing made any sense. She sifted the conversations she could remember. There was no answer. He was a reflection in water that changed shape when the wind blew.

Sighing inwardly, she stood beside her father. Arms folded, legs astride, he was surveying the courtyard of armed men like a good peasant watching the turnip tops breaking through the soil. Margery and her sisters had journeyed to Tours with him; anything to assuage their individual miseries. The second party was almost ready to depart; carts lined up, fat with arms and roped with canvas, ready to
trundle
north like a procession of giant maggots.

"You look pale, daughter. I think you are missing your husband at last."

"
Missing Huddleston?
Ha, like a barrel of sour apples!"

"No child yet?" The Earl put his arm about her and patted her belly. The mere thought of a babe by Huddleston powered the colour into her cheeks and played havoc with her inside intricacies.

Warwick flicked her cheek. "When I have England back under my heel, he shall have manors in plenty."

She made no answer, narrowing her eyes against the flashing cuirasses and shining helms amassing before them.

"Aye, they will all want rewards," her father muttered. "Every man jack of them will need to have his loyalty greased with titles or land. I tell you this, Margery, Neville blood is as good as Plantagenet. By all the Saints, I could make a better king than Ned or
him
." His gaze fell sourly on Clarence who was making some kind of address to a cluster of bored gunners. "Or the mother's boy."

"Think you King Harry will be fit to govern, my lord?"

He snorted. "Of course not."

"My lord, his majesty seeks you." A French page bowed before them. King Louis waved from the other side of the courtyard.

"My lord, there may be little chance to speak with you again and..." Margery dropped into a curtsey, "I wish you God's protection and I thank you for your care of me all these years."

"It was the only thing I could do for your mother." Warwick's gloved knuckles stroked her cheek. "No, do not ask it, child. I swore an oath of secrecy and her name shall never pass my lips." He set his palm to her brow. "Until we meet again, my blessing upon you, Margaret. Stay with Anne. Lend her your strength. King Louis has sworn to see her wed to the Prince and when the dispensation arrives, the marriage must be made. She must accept her destiny."

Margery watched the men-at-arms bow to him as they parted for him and she wondered if he would be slain within the year or whether she would be kneeling before the uncrowned king of England by the Feast of All Souls.

* * *

A few days later, Margery stood on the walls of Amboise and watched the clouds darkening and rolling venomously.

"Why are you up here alone? Did my temper become too much to bear?" Isabella fidgeted beside her, her cheeks flushed with the humidity of August.

"Look at the sky, Bella."

"Oh yes, I see, well, the peasants will complain that their crops will be battered. I dare say there could be hail in those clouds."

"When there is a storm like this in Normandy then the invasion will begin. My hus—Huddleston said that if a tempest comes, it will scatter the blockade. Our fleet will sail the moment it is past."

"Oh," Isabella hugged her arms to her breast with a shudder despite the unnatural heat while the thunder rumbled through the valley and the heavy air carried with it an impending violence.

Indeed, thought Margery, time to go.

* * *

It was a week before God delivered what Margery was praying for, a day of full rain. Only then, clad in Alys's garments, could she pass the drawbridge with the hood of the cloak well down, covering her face.

Anne had sworn to provide lies for her absence and it had been so easy to walk along the main street to the church and kneel in prayer at the mass just as Alys always did. The hard part now would be to hire a horse but she had sufficient money to buy four hooves and silence. She would hide in the church until curfew—Alys had told her where—and perhaps seek the Levallois's help. Mayhap they would sell her a mount. If not, she must plead with a carter to take her to Tours and then hire as best she might.

It was the waiting that was the worst. Hunger and other needs gnawed at her but the old convent training of meditation returned to her. If nothing else, she could try to make her peace with God. Guilt that she could not obey her father's wishes and serve her youngest sister fought against her duty to prevent the war that might destroy England.

The hours dragged by. She heard the bells and the plainsong, the whisper of prayers and the shrieking of a distraught mother. True darkness seemed to tarry, but stiffly she eventually uncurled and crawled out guiltily from beneath the altar of Our Lady.

The evening air was sweet with rain after the incense and the dust but she was not prepared for this—a half-dozen men in harness surrounded her, torches spitting in the drizzle.

* * *

They took her back into the chateau by the river postern and down into the very bowels of the cliff where the air was dank and fetid and there they kept her.

For over two weeks, if her calculations in this eternal night held any truth, no one had any speech with her. She had no candle. There were rats for company and a bucket that she had to feel her way to. Twice a day, ale, a trencher of coarse bread and a cup of gruel were pushed through a grating in the door. At least they wanted to keep her alive.

Margery was left to call on every mental strength to keep her sanity. The morning they bought a flint to light the cressets, clean women's garments and water to cleanse herself was the worst. She ate the good food they left even though she guessed they were tormenting her with hope. The King of France held her like a fly in his web.

A few hours later—was it day or night?—two soldiers hauled her roughly out and dragged her to a smoky chamber lit by wall torches and an iron brazier. Terror almost paralysed her; a brawny man, his leather-apron scarce encompassing his bulging belly, was thrusting branding irons into the glowing coals. A second fellow, sweat dripping down his naked chest, turned and looked her over with crude and gleeful lust. Then she began to scream.

The clout on the ear nearly deafened her, sending her senses reeling as they forced her onto a stool and wrenched her arms back. Struggling wildly availed her little. An iron chain, suspended from a pulley, swung into her and they bound her wrists to it with the leather straps.

It was higher than was comfortable, putting unnatural pressure on her neck and upper back. She jerked wildly. The chain answered with a mocking rattle behind her. Indignity, humiliation, discomfort, anger, fear and finally heat from the embers, barely a man's pace from her, combined to torment her but there was more to suffer. Much more. The guards left.

The practitioners of torture were waiting.

The second man lifted his apron and rubbed a grimy hand meaningfully across his codpiece and the large man came to stand leering beside him. She could imagine their filthy fingers already crawling over her body as they appraised her.

But it was not King Louis who came to stand gloating down on the prisoner; it was Margaret of Anjou. The long-nailed fingers tapping upon her folded arms were tuned to the menace in her smile. Behind her, an amanuensis seated himself upon a stool brought by a sergeant-at-arms, his writing block upon his knee, the quill poised.

"Warwick's bastard and the usurper's whore. What a jewel you are, Mistress Huddleston."

"Madam, what do you mean by this? I have done you no harm." Margery tried to stand but the gaoler thrust her back down with an ugly paw.

"Nor shall you. You do not do things by halves, do you, Margery of Warwick? First the usurper, then his brawling brother, Clarence. Did little Dick of Gloucester lift your skirts as well or is he too much of an impotent runt to try?"

Margery shrugged, ignoring the gibe. "He has two bastard children, I am told, madam."

"But not by you. You are clever enough not to become inconvenienced by your
affaires.
Is it witchcraft that makes you so palatable to Yorkist upstarts, mistress? Your looks do little for you."

"No, madam," Margery protested gravely. If the Queen's mind settled on witchcraft, the local bishop would readily light a fire in the market place to please her.

"We shall come to your adultery anon. We are here for a simple interrogation, mistress. How long or what form it takes lies within your fair hands." Margery swallowed in fear; the smaller man smirked, his calculating eyes on her fingers. Would they begin there? Wrenching her nails out one by one?

The Queen uncrossed her arms, spreading her hands. "We simply want to know what Clarence intends to do when he reaches England. Does he plan to be reunited with the usurper Edward?"

"You could have asked me at any time, madam. There was no need to go to this inconvenience."

The Queen's eyes glittered. "You broke your parole, your sacred word as a hostage. Where were you going?"

"I have a lover. I was going to him. As for my duty as your hostage, madam, I made no such promise nor did my half-sisters. It was decided without us."

"As with all hostages since the dawn of time. If you wish to set eyes on either of those young women again, you had better consider your answers now most carefully."

"If truth will buy me liberty then, no, I do not believe the Duke wishes to be reconciled with his brothers. He has never spoken of it."

The Queen scowled. With a sudden movement, her hand flashed out to grab a fistful of Margery's hair and violently yanked her head back.

"You scream now with such little pain, you lying whore! But we have the means of teasing the truth out of perjurers. What shall it be? A brand upon your neck or breast? A knotted cord about your brows?"

"Madam, I have done you no ill. Dear Jesu, if you harm me, my father shall hear of it."

"Only if you live to tell the tale." The Queen let go with a wicked thrust that jerked her prisoner's head forward. Margery would have tumbled off the stool had the chain not cruelly held her.