The Maiden and the Unicorn (9 page)

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Richard gritted his teeth as they left their inn hard by Friary Gate next morning and turned into the street that ran along the inner west wall of the city. He was not proud of himself but he had one card left in his hand, a bloody card at that. Would Margery notice that Southampton had a different mood to Exeter, that the citizens shopped tightlipped, their eyes blinkered? The route he chose was circuitous; it led past the castle which the King had shunned.

"If you will be guided by me, Mistress Margery, do not look to the western walls," he advised her with a tone of superiority that was calculated to provoke rebellion. Of course, she would look—she was a woman.

It was the stench that assailed Margery first, reminding her of the hanged man in the gibbet, making her belly threaten to return her breakfast.

"By Our Blessed Lady!" exclaimed Alys, her maidservant, and Stone's men-at-arms swore loudly, their horses jerking and whinnying at a sudden rough handling of their bridles. A reflex almost, Margery looked, glimpsed the disfiguring insults to humanity hoisted above the ramparts and shut her eyes in horror, her head spinning. It was the elite of Warwick's army, the men he had sent to seize his ships and sail them round to Devon. They were men she would have recognised, possibly given a name to but their heads were gone and stakes were...

She heard Stone curse. Someone's gloved hand grabbed her horse's reins and led it swiftly onward. Tears blinded her. Eventually when they slackened pace and the odour of rotting flesh no longer hung in their nostrils, she was able to distinguish the faintly unpleasant but reassuring smell of seaweed and hear the rhythmic wash of the waves on the sand. Margery ran a knuckle beneath her eyes and tried to staunch her crying. A man's arm came round her shoulders. It had to be Stone, trying to draw her to his shoulder but she shook him away.

"I
know
him. The King would never..." She bit her lip, shaking her head violently as if to dislodge those terrible images.

The horses came to a standstill. They were beyond the castle now.

"It was on my lord of Worcester's orders, they tell me."
 

'Butcher Worcester,' she muttered.
 

"I warned you not to look, mistress." Stone's voice was kind and gentle, a side of him she had not glimpsed before. He leaned across to tilt her face up. With his gloved finger, he smoothed the droplets from her cheeks and mopped her dry with the edge of the wimple. At least it did have some use, reflected Margery, surprised that her whimsical humour could surface amidst more passionate emotions. She gazed gravely up at her companion.

"Your advice was wise, Master Stone, I should not have looked. But I am not a child."

"No," he agreed solemnly, his eyes gently scanning her face. "You are not a child."

"
You
think it is wrong, do you not?"

"Yes," he said softly. "I despise such cruelty."

"Then we are at last in agreement with one another, Master Stone."

A slow smile hovered at the corners of his mouth and then lit his entire face. "I am sure it will not last. Shall we go on or do you need more time? You cannot kneel before King Edward with your eyes puffed and red from weeping."

Stone was right but her appearance was of little importance now. Could the young king she remembered have metamorphosed into a tyrant?

"I tell you this, Master Stone. If my lord of Warwick ever has Worcester at his mercy, that monster will rue his handiwork," she growled. "Are we almost there?"

"His grace is at the mayor's house this morning." He pointed up the street to a high gabled house, adorned with a costly frieze of carved oak, its porch cluttered by a dozen soldiers in the King's livery and a score of countryfolk and urchins waiting for a glimpse of the royal profile.

"Of course, I see it now. I thank you for your care." With that solemn dismissal, she dug her heels into her mare's flank and urged it forward through the throng and determinedly into the bustling courtyard, dismounting before any of the King's grooms or esquires could help her. She tossed the mare's reins imperiously to the nearest man who ran forward. Then she set her face proudly towards the official who came down the steps to ask her business and swept into the mansion in his wake.

Richard hurried after her. He could not let her go in to King Edward in such a dangerous temper. "I did not know you had property in Southampton," he remarked, catching up and setting his hat straight. She gave him a questioning look. "Mistress, you are behaving as if you own the entire city."

She glanced at the official's back ahead of her, biting her lip rebelliously, before she answered his levity. "Master Stone, I thank you for whatever trouble you have been asked to take on my behalf but now we are here I can manage my own affairs."

He grabbed her arm, trying to force her to a halt. "Have a care, before you stoke your burning indignation further." She almost faltered in her step as her eyes met his. His gaze was serious, concerned. "Listen to why the King's grace has sent for you and weigh what he says."
 

"Of course," she agreed briskly, tapping her riding crop impatiently against her gloved palm and, embarrassed, realised she should have left it with the groom.

Master Stone rescued the crop from her hands and stowed it within the breast of his doublet.

They had reached a hushed antechamber full of grave-faced people waiting for an audience.

"We are expected," the King's Receiver announced to the usher and as they waited to be summoned into the royal presence, Margery's simmering anger chilled. She was determined not to show the misapprehension that suddenly assailed her – the reality of not only confronting the most powerful man in England but the lover for whom she had been punished.
 

"You have carried out the King's orders, Master Stone," she exclaimed as the door to the royal presence opened and the guards stood aside to let them pass. "As I said just now, I see no necessity for you to accompany me further."
 

"I am sure you don't." But his expression was adamant as he offered his arm.

"Oh, I see, Master Stone, you expect to be rewarded."

"Yes, I trust so." His confident smile was not just to put her at her ease.
 

"Abducting defenceless women doesn't warrant a knighthood, King's Receiver."

"True, and you are keeping the King of England waiting. Come!"

It would have been ungracious not to rest her fingers on his gloved wrist, and in all honesty she was not displeased as he threw back his shoulders with a proud grace and led her in.

Chapter 4

The heavy doors rattled to, enclosing them in a large room dominated by a heavy oak table heaped with rolls of vellum and an assortment of inkwells and quills. A man in a cord-du-roi tabard was preoccupied in dripping hot wax upon a folded letter. After he had jabbed the royal seal into it, he straightened up, wiped ink-stained fingers on his rear, looked towards the window and bowed.

"You have leave, Kendall."

Margery whirled round at that familiar voice as King Edward IV, her dear Ned, even more of a giant than she remembered, stepped down from the window recess. And she forgot all anger. It was her memory, not her heart, that was stirred by the sight of him. Because she was older, or maybe it was having Master Stone at her elbow, she saw the King with different eyes.

She sank into a deep curtsey as Ned strode across to her with that lazy grace that was so deep in his nature. Behind her, Stone lowered himself respectfully onto one knee.

"Well met, sweet heart."

Warm fingers caught Margery's chin causing her to look up once more into the blue eyes she remembered so well. A strong but gentle clasp drew her to her feet and his mouth closed down upon her lips, soft and sensuous as before. But she felt nothing.

Perhaps it was because the King's Receiver fidgeted, shifting to his other knee, distracting her. Was his presence somehow exorcising the sorcery that Ned had always held over her? Or was it because she was older now, less gullible? Intense relief flooded through her.
 

Ned released her, and condescended to notice her companion. "My brother Gloucester is waiting to hear of Mistress Margery's arrival. Pray go and inform him, sirrah!" She sensed the suppressed irritation in Stone but he stood up obediently and bowed himself out.

"Let me see you properly, Meg." A twist on her fingers forced her to twirl round for Ned. "Certes, there is more flesh on you but delightfully so. What monstrosity is this?" His large hands deftly freed her from the wimple and cast it over his shoulder. "You are more beautiful than I remember, Margery of Warwick."

"Despite the six long years?"

Ned's sky-coloured eyes bathed her in a kindness that was sincere as he touched her short hair. "Indeed, all my fault and you have paid the price. I crave your pardon." His arm fastened about her shoulders and he turned her to the hearth. "Make yourself comfortable by the fire and let us have mulled wine and sweet oatcakes." He shook a brass bell that stood on the table and a young page ran in from a door beside the arras to know his bidding.

Margery sat down happily on a settle made luxurious by tawny velvet cushions. She edged her cold toes to the fire as close as she dared without scorching the leather of her soles, then turned her head to savour the presence of the man who had once been heaven to her. At one time this informal domesticity with the King of England had been her only dream.

Beaming back at him, she saw again within his smile the handsome, genial youth who had bent time to visit his younger brothers in the schoolroom and Warwick's daughters in the nursery. Margery had been older than the others, worldly enough to catch the grin that he tossed at her like a ball above the smaller heads. Many a time he had mimicked the posturings of the great nobles of the land to her, teaching her they had the same weaknesses as lesser men. As his visits grew infrequent so her pride in him blossomed as he defeated Lancaster and became King. By the time she reached sixteen, she was deaf to the rumours that he had been secretly wed or that nothing in skirts south of Berwick was safe from him.

She gave a small, happy sigh, hugging to herself the sight of Ned with the great golden chain across his broad shoulders and the ring of England weighing upon his finger, grinning at her. The aroma of temporal power exuded from him but there were subtle enemies to greatness. He might still majestically dwarf the world around him but there was now an increased heaviness about his girth that was emphasised by the pleated red and gold embroidered brocade doublet, and even the hint of jowl beneath his jawline.

Flinging himself into the chair opposite her with a smile, he sprawled in the relaxed way she remembered so well, his long legs stretched out to the hearth.

"Do I pass examination, Meg?" he mocked.

"Oh dear," she exclaimed. "Am I that transparent?"

"I am sure that ten years of being mobbed by scrofulous beggars, begetting princesses and ruling a realm of wilful lords has done its damage." He was right. Time had also chiselled cynical curves about his mouth and carved deep lines from the corners of his eyes.

"To be truthful, you are looking heavier. Does it bother your horse?"

The smile twitched at the corners of his mouth and spread until it mirrored her own teasing expression and his laughter filled the room. "No, only the Queen complains."

The page scurried in like a little mouse, set the pot of mulled wine upon the hearth and shifted a tray of chased silver goblets from the table to the royal footstool. Ned dismissed him with a wave and perused her kindly.

"So now what do you want of me, Ned?" asked Margery softly. It was a risk to call him by the name he had once allowed her but she needed to remind him of her ruin. "Why am I here?"

"You do not know?" He sounded surprised.

"Your grace, acquiring information from your wretched Receiver is like trying to extract a healthy tooth from a dragon."

The King lazily stretched his arms above his head, raising his eyebrows as if he was not sure how to answer before letting his arms drop and reaching out a nonchalant hand for the ladle. "Well, there are amends to make—Ouch!" He swore as the metal burnt him. "But first your news."