The Rose of York (43 page)

“The music of the North,” Richard whispered, drawing Anne close and breathing deep the freshness of the air.

“My lord?”

“I first noticed it as a boy when I came up to Middleham. The North sings, Anne. It has a melody all its own. A rejoicing, exultant melody…” He began to hum. “Here would come the tabors… and here the flute and harp… and here the clash of cymbals…” He tapped out the rhythm on the rampart. “Can you not hear it?”

“Aye,” she smiled. “My heart hears it, my love.”

“Someday I shall write down the notes. It will be a song for lovers to sing with the birds… No, our song, Anne, to remind us always of this perfect moment.”

“This perfect twilight… Aye, whatever the future holds for us—come what may—we shall sing it together and remember this twilight. But a pity we shan’t hear the birds and see the twilight here again.”

“What do you mean?”

“The hall at Barnard has no window to the view.”

“Then there’s no way about it, Flower-eyes, is there? We shall have to climb the ramparts each evening.” Now he knew what his wedding gift to Anne would be. In the gathering dimness, her huge eyes were dark as pansies, and her hair, no longer the buttercup of childhood, caught the last rays of the dying sun and gleamed a rich honey-gold. He brushed his lips against her forehead. There was so much he wanted to give her.

“I wonder, dear wife, how your lady mother would feel about leaving Sanctuary?”

Anne turned wide eyes on him. “But George has made her a pauper. Where would she go?”

“Middleham.”

Anne didn’t follow for a moment, then she gave an audible gasp. “With us, my sweet lord? Oh, Richard, oh—my beloved, dear heart…” She threw her arms around his neck, happy tears wetting her cheeks.

That night the sky was black as velvet and a great moon shone like spun gold. Fireflies glinted in the forest, turning darkness into fairyland. They slept with the windows open and the bed curtains drawn back. Moonlight flooded the chamber and a cool breeze drifted in, laden with the scent of pine, the sound of rushing water, and birdsong.

“The winter seemed so long this year, I had forgotten that birds sang at night,” Anne said, snuggling drowsily in Richard’s arms.

Richard lay stiffly on his back, wide awake. There was a choking in his chest and a burning in his loins that cried out for the release that only Anne could give him. But he dared not touch her lest he lose control. These past few days in her bed had been agony for him, to lie so close and remain so apart. He would have to confine himself to his own chamber at nights from now on. There was no other way.

“Even then, ’tis rare,” he managed. “Only on magical nights, when their hearts are filled to bursting, do they sing in the dark.”

Softly humming the tune he had named the Song of the North, Anne turned and kissed him full on the mouth. His heart leapt in his chest. Her arms and legs went about him, silken ropes that would bind him to her forever, and he tightened his hold of her, like a drowning man in a surging tide. His breath caught, his mind reeled, and he was swept along on the tide, now sinking, now buoyant, into utter darkness and into blinding light. He soared up into that light and for a moment he felt himself embraced by the sun, then the brilliance faded, and the tide ebbed. Peaceful and whole at last, he floated back gently to Anne’s arms and the moonlit room.

~ * * * ~

“And thou, put on your worst and meanest dress And ride with me.”

Reluctant to leave Barnard’s Castle, Richard and Anne stayed until the month of May. During these days, it seemed to them that time stood still and they lived in a golden moment. Richard had many duties to attend to from early morning until Vespers, but afterwards they listened to the songs of troubadours and readings of poetry, and strolled among the flowers in the castle garden, laughing at nothing and whispering together as lovers had done since the beginning of time. And after the merriment and the soft moments, Richard would lead her by the hand into their bedchamber, where they bestowed on one another ineffable joy. Then Anne would snuggle into the curve of his body, and entwined in one another’s arms, they would fall asleep to dream.

One morning soon after May Day, in the darkness before dawn, they lay quietly together, savouring the fragrant summer air drifting in through the open windows. Richard nuzzled the back of Anne’s soft neck. She turned over thoughtfully. “Richard…”

“Mmm…” he murmured, cupping a hand over her breast, which had become temptingly exposed.

“Richard, let’s dress as pilgrims and run away!”

“You’re mad, my love,” he murmured between nibbles, his hand roving further down her smooth body to her thigh.

“Humour me, Richard—it would only be for a day and a night,” pleaded Anne, rising so suddenly from bed that Richard found himself kissing a pillow. She went to the window and stood for a moment, gazing out at the moonlight. She turned and looked at him with her great violet eyes. “Soon we have to leave this beautiful place—the chance may not come again.

Think, Richard, to be alone together a whole night, to make love in the forest and beneath the stars. To have a whole day with no one to petition us, no councillors to wrangle you, no secretaries to bring you flocks of papers to sign! Oh, Richard— I’ve been dreaming of it for weeks—just once in our lives let’s do it so we can always remember.”

Richard sat up at last, realising she was serious. “But I have pressing matters to attend. There are appointments to be made, grievances to be heard, funds to be allocated, my sweet.”

What he said was true. Unable to trust George, unwilling to trust Percy, Edward had saddled Richard with burdensome responsibilities. In addition to his offices as Admiral of the Sea and Warden of the West Marches, he was Warden and Justice of the forests north of the Trent, High Steward of the Duchy of Lancaster, and even constable of several castles. Anne felt a moment’s guilt, but quickly banished it. Richard worked hard from dawn to dusk and denied himself all pleasure. He desperately needed respite from the gruelling pace he set himself.

“There’s no end to your pressing matters, Richard, but there may never be a night like this again. See, the sky is not black, it’s purple.” She sat down beside him and trailed her fingers along the rough, curling hairs of his broad chest. She pushed back a stray lock from his brow, and cooed seductively, “I promise you, you won’t regret it… beneath the stars… in the tall grass…”

Richard rose with a laugh. “My little dove, I can’t deny you anything. I don’t know why I even try.”

“I shall wear a grey kirtle!” Anne exclaimed, breathless with excitement. “Take off your jewels…” She grabbed his rings, threw them into the jewel casket, and did the same with her own. She lit a candle and ran with it to a chest against the wall near the garderobe. She rummaged about. “Here,” she said, throwing him a coarse brown sackcloth and a scrip covered with cockleshells. “Put this on—and this…” she threw him a pair of worn leather sandals.

“Where ever did you get these, Anne?” Richard asked in disbelief.

“I’ve been collecting them, for just such a day. I had no doubt you’d consent.” She peeked at him over her shoulder and smiled.

They tiptoed over the sleeping servants, and those who awoke were sworn to secrecy. Quietly they stole across the gravelly court of the Keep, down the steep stone steps to the stables of the Middle Ward. Leaving their best horses behind, they mounted a dull brown mare. With Anne riding pillion behind him, Richard clucked the animal out to the sally port. “Open!” he commanded.

“Who goes there?” demanded the burly gatekeeper. Richard slipped his hood back and the man bent down, peered at his face. “My lord Duke!” he exclaimed with astonishment.

“Hush, fellow! Someone might hear you…” Behind him, Anne giggled.

“Aye, Your Grace!” the gatekeeper announced loudly, and immediately apologetic, whispered, “Aye, Your Grace.”

“If anyone inquires, tell them we won’t be back till the morrow.”

“But Your Grace…” the man blustered, summoning his courage. “You are alone. ’Tis not safe.”

“Safe enough,” Richard replied.

Reluctantly the gatekeeper cranked open the portcullis. Richard dug his spurs into the mare’s flank, perhaps too harshly, for she tore off at a gallop along the Tees Bridge, nearly dropping her royal load. Below thundered the river, swirling rapidly. Hair and cloak flying, bouncing wildly on the saddle as they raced across, Anne clung to Richard, half-laughing, half-crying.

Once across the bridge, they flew north along the deserted river bank, past the darkened houses of Startforth on their small plots of vegetable gardens and fowl-runs, past stone cottages, past a manor house, past open pastures and large arable tracts of barley and rye. Across the silent hills, a rooster announced himself. Soon this herald of the new day was joined by bells chiming for Prime and a chorus of bleating, barking, and braying from stirring farm animals. Darkness yielded to dawn, staining the sky fierce orange and crimson. Abandoning the road where they might encounter passers-by, they galloped across rolling green pastures and meadows covered with wildflowers, leaving behind the gentle river valleys for the rugged upland of the Pennines.

At the crest of a hill the lathered mare came to a halt. A flock of sparrows soared in the sky, black silhouettes against the rising sun. Richard and Anne sat quietly, listening to their cries and watching the fiery ball of fire melt into gold. Richard glanced back at Anne, and they smiled at one another. He tightened his hold of her hands locked around his waist, and she laid her head on his shoulder with a sigh. He felt her breath warm and moist against his neck, and caught the scent of her lavender fragrance. The ache in his loins kindled by her nearness surged into heat, and blood coursed through his veins like an awakened river, sending his heart hammering. He flung himself from the saddle, swung her off the mare, and swept her roughly down into the thick clover. “Is this what you had in mind?” he whispered, hoarse with desire.

“Not exactly,” Anne said with a mischievous smile. Between slow, shivery kisses, she undressed him and cast his pilgrim’s sackcloth aside until he lay naked in the dewy greenness. Her hand seared a path down to his legs. Richard undid her bodice with trembling fingers and let his hand move under her skirt to skim her hips and thighs. She quivered as her flaming body arched towards his and their legs entwined. He kissed her savagely and her perfume of lavender assailed his nostrils. A cloud of lavender lifted him up, hurled him headlong into a rushing wind, and there was naught in that wind but lavender, naught in that sky but lavender, naught but lavender in all the world. Lavender and an ecstasy that bore him to the fringes of Heaven.

Blissful with fulfillment, Richard lay on his back in the clover, cradling Anne’s head on his shoulder. Her eyelashes fluttered against his cheek. He kissed her brow. Never could he have imagined such rapture, such complete harmony. He gazed at the emerald hills, curving one behind the other as far as the eye could see, and up at the sky, which was now liquid gold. There was a piercing sweetness in the song of the birds and an intoxicating perfume to the wildflowers. God’s music bathed the world with blinding splendour.

Anne stirred in his arms. “Come what may, we’ll always have this moment, Richard.”

“Come what may, beloved, I shall love you till the day I die,” said Richard.

~*~

Richard and Anne frolicked all afternoon. When they grew hungry they picked berries, and to quench their thirst they drank from babbling brooks with water that sparkled like crystals. Anne gathered wildflowers and made Richard a garland to hang around his neck, and they played Hoodman’s Bluff, the prize any favour the winner might demand. Richard lost no time winning. He chased Anne into the woods where he staked his claim, and they made love in a clearing beneath an elm. The woods smelled of earth, fern, and wet stone, and the heavy summer air was full of molten light. He carved their initials into the trunk of an elm, and as the day was warm, and the sun at its highest, they lay down together and soon fell asleep beneath the boughs.

Hours later, they awoke. The skies had darkened, and the wind had risen. A storm was brewing in the east. In all haste they set out to find a village for the night, but before they could leave the woods, they were caught in a drenching downpour.

“We’ll find refuge,” said Richard to comfort Anne, but in truth he was deeply concerned. She was clad only in a thin kirtle and a light cloak that afforded little protection against the weather. They were somewhat sheltered under an oak, yet she was already shivering. He shielded her with his body as they waited, but the deluge gave no sign of subsiding, and it was growing dark. If they didn’t hurry, they’d have no hope of finding shelter before nightfall. Now he cursed himself for coming without escort. Besides the weather, there was the added danger of outlaws, and he was ill-prepared to defend Anne from either. How could he have given so little thought to this excursion? He, who prided himself on his meticulous planning of every venture he undertook, no matter how small or insignificant. He, who had been faulted for too much painstaking attention to detail.