The Rose of York (27 page)

“We have reached an agreement, King Louis and I,” announced her father. “Louis will reconcile Marguerite to me, and I will restore Henry of Lancaster to the throne.”

Anne heard Bella gasp. She looked behind to where her sister sat. George stood beside Bella, already half-drunk. He gave Anne a brutal stare, a look that would have struck fear into her once.

The Countess rose from her velvet chair in stunned surprise. “But Marguerite hates us. You brought Henry down.” “It appears that her thirst for revenge on the House of York is greater than her loathing for us,” Warwick said dryly.

“Why would Louis…” her mother broke off in bafflement.

“Louis’s reward is an alliance of England and France against Burgundy,” said Warwick. A silence fell. Finally the Countess spoke again. “And your reward, my lord?”

Warwick smiled, reached out his hand to Anne. “Mine, my dear Countess, is the marriage of our daughter, Anne, to Marguerite’s son, Prince Edouard. One day, my Anne, you shall be Queen of England. Think of it;
Queen of England
!”

Anne felt a terrible weakness in her body. The faces around her blurred and dimmed; the room tilted and began to spin. Everything went black and she sank to the floor in a heap.

~*~

Anne pleaded with her mother and fought with her father, but nothing moved them. Her father threatened to throw her out into the streets if she refused to comply, but she came to realise his bluster and fury hid a terrible truth: He himself had no choice, so he could offer her none.

In the days following her father’s announcement, Anne learned that he had lost faith in George, as it became clear to him that the people of England would rather keep Edward their king than accept his vain, foolish brother. Since her father found his position under Edward untenable, and he couldn’t place George on the throne, there was only one alternative left to him: Restore Henry of Lancaster. By this marriage, the Kingmaker would achieve his heart’s desire. His daughter would be queen. Only it would not be Bella. That was why George followed her around with jealous, hate-filled eyes.

At Angers, in the solar, the Countess added another instruction to the many she had already given Anne. “The King of France is not like Edward, dear child,” she whispered. “Take care not to show your feelings. Do you understand?”

Anne stared at her blankly.

Wringing her hands, the Countess turned to a lady-inwaiting. “She is so thin, so pale—she has been ailing. God’s mercy, can nothing be done for her? Prince Edouard…” She broke off helplessly. So much depended on this meeting. She pinched Anne’s cheeks to force colour into them. The child was as white as a phantom.

The lady-in-waiting rummaged through her ointments and pulled out a vial. “Juice of the pomegranate fruit,” she said, rubbing a few drops into Anne’s cheekbones and lips. She adjusted the pearl coil holding Anne’s hair and stood back to regard her handiwork.

“Better,” the Countess agreed. “Now, child, let us go to the King… and remember my warning.”

Anne heard her mother as through a mist. When she’d recovered from that day in Caen Castle, she found that life came to her in broken pieces, hushed and distant, as though a thing apart, evolving around her but not through her. It was like the early days at the abbey, except without the pleasure or the hope. She sat listlessly in the abbey gardens where she once used to stroll. She no longer took down the books from the shelves, or looked in the mirror, or cared what she wore. Her gauzy veils and the sea-green satin dress sprinkled with silver stars that her mother had laboured on for this special occasion meant nothing to her; the jewels loaned her by the Queen of France, nothing. Even her prayers brought her no comfort and seemed to come from lips not her own. Only one aspect of life seemed real and would not be silenced no matter how many prayers she uttered, how many candles she lit.

Her fear of Marguerite d’Anjou. The dreams had returned.

Dutifully Anne fell into step behind her mother as she led her out of the solar and along the gallery to meet the King.

~*~

Two men-at-arms thrust open the doors to the King’s bedchamber. Now Anne understood her mother’s warning.

In stark contrast to the opulence of their own quarters, the royal bedchamber was bare of furniture and gloomy, lit by only one candle on a mantle over a high fireplace. A foul stench struck her as she stood blinking in the darkness and she nearly coughed. Slowly, her eyes adjusted. She saw that the King of France lounged on a pallet on the floor instead of a throne, and in lieu of a golden crown he wore a filthy, odd-shaped dark hat. His black hair was matted to his brow with sweat and his shrewd dark eyes were hooded and bulged like those of a toad. His features were coarse, his face made ominous by an enormous crooked nose. Instead of splendid robes, he wore a cheap grey coat, and instead of courtiers, he was surrounded by dogs.

Louis of France, Anne thought, was the most hideous creature she had ever seen.

She approached, moving carefully along the rush-strewn floor to avoid stepping in excrement. She sank into a low curtsy before the King and held her breath as she kissed the hairy hand he offered.

Louis XI examined her while he stroked a narrow-faced grey dog. He smiled, showing a mouthful of gaps and blackened teeth. “My gracious cousin, the Setter-up and Plucker-down of Kings, did not tell me his daughter is beautiful like a rose. That makes our task more simple,
n’est-ce pas
? You are fifteen,
m’enfant
?”

Anne replied with downcast eyes, “Aye, Your Grace.”

“Good, very good. You may ’ave children right away.”

Anne blushed.

“Do you like my dogs?” he demanded suddenly.

Startled, Anne didn’t respond for a moment. The dogs were a motley group who stared at her haughtily, unwilling to accept her right to be there. “Aye, my lord,” she finally said.

“I prefer them to people. They are—’ow you say it? Predictable.” He rose. He was a tall man with a slight stoop. “
Alors
, let us go now and meet the Queen Marguerite.”

Anne followed the strange figure down the gallery, feeling as though she were following a glistening spider into his dark and terrible lair.

~*~

The doors to the great hall were drawn open to receive the King. Anne saw a huge chamber bright with tapestries, vibrant paintings and beautiful sculptures, the walls lined by Lancastrian exiles, their shabby dress a stark contrast to the surroundings. Their faces were turned to Anne as she waited in the entrance, and in their fierce looks she read their memories of blood and wrong. Most were unfamiliar, but below the dais stood certain faces she recognised.

There was her uncle, the Earl of Oxford, black curls falling over his pale brow, his emblem of the Star and Streams blazing on his jacket. There was King Henry’s Welsh half-brother, Jasper Tudor, tall, austere, greying, a frown on his craggy face. And King Edward’s brother-in-law, the Duke of Exeter, a long angry scar slashing his cheeks, his garments nearly threadbare. Nearest the queen stood the Duke of Somerset, scowling across the hall at Anne, his hand on his sword hilt, as though he would slay her if she dared step forward.

Sunlight poured through the windows; candles and flaming torches lit the hall. Yet it seemed to Anne the place was dark and cold, and she shivered. Her glance fell on Richard’s little ring of silver leaves quivering on her finger and she averted her gaze. Bugles blared. The King’s herald announced him. Louis strode up to the dais, nodding to his courtiers as he went. Anne heaved a breath, murmured a hasty prayer, and stuck out her chin. She was next.

The herald shrilled his bugle.

“Lady Anne Neville, daughter of the mighty Earl of Warwick, Maker of Kings!”

Anne made her way up the long hall to the throne with stiff dignity, dragging her legs towards the woman in black velvet who sat beneath the royal canopy and the youth in red and purple who stood beside her. On the far side of the dais, Louis lounged casually against the window, arms crossed. He reminded Anne of a spider watching flies struggle in his web: a gigantic, ugly spider. A gargoyle.

She felt dizzy and the figures began to blur.
No!
She must not faint. To faint now would be to dishonour the House of Neville! She had to keep going—for her father’s sake. She was his only hope of salvation, the only way out of his anguished predicament. To such desperate lengths had he been driven that he had paid Marguerite’s brutal price for this marriage. He had knelt at her feet, begging her forgiveness and singing her praises. And Marguerite had savoured his humiliation by keeping him prostrate a full quarter-hour before granting him permission to rise. He had grovelled and abased himself at the feet of his father’s murderess, knowing full well how all the world would laugh at the once-proud, once-mighty Kingmaker. He had done that, and she must do this. She could not fail him in his hour of greatest need. She fixed her eyes on him, to draw strength from his strength.

He stood below the dais, to Marguerite’s left, a majestic figure in blue and gold, his shoulders stiffly erect, a frozen smile on his taut face. His blue eyes were riveted on her, but it was not strength she found there. It was fear.

Dear Mary Mother, help me…

She turned her eyes on the Queen. Like an eagle circling prey, there was a wild and dangerous beauty to Marguerite d’Anjou. Her netted brown braids were twisted like wings beneath a circlet of gold, and from a wide angular face glittering dark eyes stared out with scowling intensity. As Anne approached, she saw that the Queen sat so rigidly, gripped the carved side arms of her chair with such force, that her knuckles were bloodless white. For an instant Anne expected hatred to rip the Queen from her seat and send her flying at her with the scaly wings, hissing breath, and venom of the gargoyles in her dreams.

Blessed Mar
y, she thought, averting her gaze from the Queen. She turned to the Prince with a measure of hope, for nothing could be as terrible as the monster on the chair. He was seventeen, almost Richard’s age, she thought. A year younger.
Think not of Richard now; he is gone, gone, gone…
She staggered, caught herself, and continued forward. She saw that Prince Edouard was tall, handsome, muscular, with wavy brown hair, fine bone structure, and green eyes that glared at her from a face contorted with loathing.

She shuddered. Her legs shook, collapsed beneath her, and she dropped to the floor, her face in her skirts. The action might well have cast disgrace on the Nevilles but for the fact that she had reached the dais. Thankfully, the Queen kept her on her knees a long moment before granting her permission to rise.

Anne raised her eyes shyly, hesitantly, and looked up at the royals through half-lowered lashes. She was surprised to see the contemptuous smile on the young prince’s lips falter, but the face of the woman her father had once called the Bitch of Anjou did not soften. Marguerite examined her with the coldness of a surgeon about to disembowel the condemned. Then she whispered something to her son, who recovered himself enough to smile at her with contempt.

“So you wish to be queen one day,” Marguerite announced in a husky voice thick with the accent of her native Anjou.

Anne braced herself before she spoke. “’Tis not what I wish that matters, but what God wishes for me, Your Grace.”

Marguerite d’Anjou gave a dry chuckle. “Ah, the little mouse can speak,” she said to her son over her shoulder, loud enough for the hall to hear. “Well, there is hope, I dare say.”

Derisive laughter swept the room. Anne blushed a vivid scarlet. She had survived what had promised to be the hardest part. Now she knew the worst lay ahead.

~ * * * ~

“From my own earldom foully ousted me.”

The June sky was a flawless turquoise; birds chirped and squirrels chased one another around the trees. Near a circle of green in the Archbishop’s palace, the once Lancastrian Henry Percy, clad in flaming reds and golds and surrounded by an elegant retinue, came up to John as he gave his squire instructions. John’s new wolf-hound pup, Roland, that he’d adopted after Rufus’s death, rose to his feet with a low growl.

“So,
Marquess of Montagu
, I see you can still afford a horse and a squire,” Percy said with a glance at George Gower saddling John’s horse. “But your man is gaunt, your horse mangy. It must be difficult to feed both on forty pounds a year. Evidently the King places a high value on your services.” Percy grinned at his retinue. His men snorted.

John winced. Laughter and snide remarks had followed him from that ill-starred day in March when the King had stripped him of his earldom of Northumberland. He clenched his fist, dug his nails into his palm until he drew blood. He’d trusted Edward, set him above his own brothers, and Edward had betrayed him by taking away the earldom for which he’d bled. That was the urgent matter on which his royal cousin had summoned him to York after he’d crushed the Redesdale rebellion. To inform him that the earldom was restored to Percy, who’d been released from the Tower and had sworn an oath of fealty to Edward.