The Rose of York (5 page)

Richard laid aside his lute. That was Edward. Always trying to make him laugh, even when matters were at their worst. He hugged his knees and swallowed hard. There had been no word since. Nothing. The battle must have been fought by now. What if York had lost? He screwed his eyes tight and began a prayer.

“My lord...”

Richard jerked up his head. Edward Brampton, his brother’s trusted man-at-arms, who had fled London with him that awful Yuletide months ago, stood at the door. Brampton’s face was pale and very grave. Richard’s heart began to pound.

“My lord, you are wanted in the Hall. A messenger has arrived. There is news from England.”

~ * * * ~

“And Arthur yet had done no deeds of arms, But heard the call and came.”

In the tender spring of 1462, amid the dust of falling pebbles, as sheep bleated gently and church bells rang the hour of Sext, nine-year-old Richard ascended the steep slope to Middleham Castle’s east gate. His cavalcade of knights followed, horse hoofs clattering and harness bells jingling. For three hundred years this northern castle, which the Earl of Warwick favoured above his many others, had dominated the rolling hills and meadows of Wensleydale. Richard had expected an imposing grey fortress, not the pearly jewel-box framed against the azure sky, and he stared, as wonderstruck as when he first crossed the River Trent.

His journey from London had unfolded a North that was like a song. There was music in the rustle of aspen leaves, the rushing of rivers, the thundering of waterfalls. Winds swept the endless moors and dales with a loud roaring in the ears, bending low wildflowers, heather and flowering may. Even birds sang a fiercer note in the North and wheeled with wilder freedom.

He drew a deep breath and inhaled the scented air of May. He had feared leaving London, for London was familiar and safe, but now he didn’t care to see London ever again with its crowded streets and evil smells. As his brother Edward had said—King Edward the Fourth (he would never get used to thinking of him as
King
)—Middleham Castle lay in the loveliest part of England, Wensleydale: the heart of North Yorkshire near the Rivers Ure and Cover.

Richard squinted expectantly into the sun. Pennants fluttered from the turrets but Warwick’s Bear and Ragged Staff was merely a splash of scarlet and gold in the distance. His herald galloped ahead to trumpet his approach. In spite of his excitement he was seized with fright. What if he disappointed his cousin? He held no hint of another Edward, and Warwick would be shocked at how little he’d grown since Burgundy. To worsen matters, a spring shower had soiled his grey velvet doublet and his boots were caked with mud from the journey. He looked like a stray cat.

Richard flushed with shame, remembering how disgusted Warwick had been with him on that night two years ago when they’d fled for Burgundy.
A snivelling coward
, he’d called him. Warwick was right. Only cowards were afraid, and since Ludlow and the storm at sea, his own shadow could send him trembling like custard pudding. He hated being afraid. It was as though he’d been born with a piece missing—a hole in his gut where his courage should be. If only he hadn’t asked to come. If only Edward hadn’t agreed to send him! But Edward had agreed, and heartily so. With a slap on the back that nearly felled him, Edward had declared it was time he left Nurse and his sister Meg to be with men, lest the constant companionship of women weaken his character.

Richard glanced up at the captain of his guard anxiously.

“Did you know,” said Sir John Howard, his broad face creasing into one of his easy smiles, “that it was right here, in your royal cousin Warwick’s household, that King Edward learned to be a great knight? And so shall you, m’lord.” He was a powerful warrior and one of Edward’s most favoured knights, a jolly man with a wavy mane that the years had darkened from yolk to amber and dusted with silver. Richard thought of him as Sir Friendly Lion.

But his words brought no comfort. Though Edward had knighted him on his return from Burgundy, Richard didn’t feel like a knight. He couldn’t wield a sword, and if he didn’t grow, he might never manage it. Then he’d never sit at the Round Table that Edward had promised him he’d bring back. Tightening his hold on the reins of his palfrey, and chewing his lip as he did when he was nervous, he returned his gaze to the castle.

They were less than a bow shot away.
Kingmaker
, people called his cousin Warwick, for it was Warwick’s support that had made Edward king.
Kingmaker
, too, because Warwick was richer and lived more like a king than Edward, who was always fretting about money, for Edward had many debts from the war he’d waged to win the throne from Henry of Lancaster.

The iron-barred portcullis rose with a loud grinding of chains that sent a flock of doves scattering from the ramparts. He bit his quivering lip and reminded himself that his cousin Warwick, though proud, stern, and courageous, was only an earl, while he was a duke, and Warwick was descended from only one of the five sons of Edward III, not three, as he was. But that scarcely helped.

The lowered drawbridge clanged into place. With a flourish of trumpets, he clattered through the arched stone gateway, followed by his knights. Crowds of people lined the inner court, the ladies in colourful silks, the knights in furs and velvet, the squires and servants in bright red jackets bearing the Warwick badge. He’d never seen such a retinue, even at the royal court.

Richard tightened his grip on his tasselled reins and strained his back trying to appear tall, for everyone was staring. But the eyes disappeared as he drew near, swept away into deep bows. Flooded with relief, he trotted past the chapel to his left and onward to the massive stone Keep. His gaze fell on a group at the foot of the sweeping outer staircase that led to the great hall. They held themselves as erect as he and their eyes never wavered. With a mixture of fascination and dread Richard realised that here, in their golds and scarlets, stood the awesome Nevilles. He recognised Warwick, and his youngest brother George who was Edward’s chancellor and came often to court, but he wasn’t sure about the tall, lean knight in silver with a hound at his feet. The knight stood straight as a lance, a hand to the dagger at his belt, his tawny hair blowing in the wind, reminding him of the rendering of Sir Lancelot in his illuminated manuscript.

Far too soon he closed the gap to find himself face to face with the Neville family. Fearing to speak in case his voice trembled, and not daring to look at Warwick, he focused on Lancelot. Close up, the silver knight was not young. He had the weathered face of a soldier and there were crinkly lines around his arresting blue eyes.

Lancelot grinned. “Welcome to Camelot, my fair cousin,” he said with a twinkle. “I’m John Neville. And this…” He looked down at the bright-eyed wolf-hound who sat wagging his tail, “is Rufus.” The hound barked in greeting.

So this is Warwick’s brother, the famous Lord Montagu!
thought Richard. He had a prince’s bearing to go with his lion’s heart, this military genius of courage and chivalry. Feeling his colour rise, Richard dropped his gaze to the chirping sparrows flitting about the stone steps. Lancelot could probably see straight through his stomach to his missing guts. Then, unable to hold back his curiosity, he braved a look up at John Neville’s face and was surprised to find Lancelot surveying him, not with the contempt he expected, but with a kindly expression. “Is it true you cannot be bested in a feat of arms, like Sir Lancelot, my Lord of Montagu?” he blurted out, voicing the question always linked to his famed cousin.

John Neville laughed, a deep laugh that dimpled both sides of his generous mouth. Richard’s heart warmed. His Cousin John’s good looks reminded him of his mother Cecily, called “The Rose of Raby” for her beauty, though his mother’s hair was gold, and John’s the colour of sand, and her eyes were blue periwinkles, while his were a twilight sea. There the resemblance ended. John’s brow was lofty, his jaw square. He was well-made and sun-bronzed, as someone would be who spent much time outdoors. For this reason, and in some other intangible way Richard couldn’t explain, he reminded him of his dead father, the Duke of York. Richard sensed that here was someone worthy of trust. Someone who could be a friend.

“I may have shared Lancelot’s good fortune on the field of battle,” John Neville smiled, “but Lancelot never had the pleasure of being entertained in a dungeon.”

His eyes looked sad to Richard beneath his merriment. Now Richard remembered that John had been taken prisoner when he chased a fleeing Lancastrian straight into enemy territory after a victorious battle. For his recklessness he spent time in a dungeon in the city of York and was freed only when King Edward won the city back from Henry of Lancaster and his vicious queen, Marguerite d’Anjou.

Rufus barked, and Lancelot’s voice cut into Richard’s thoughts. “My lord Duke, may I assist you to dismount?”

Shy as he was, smiles rarely came to Richard, but he gave one to John, and put out his arms.

“Benedicite,” said George Neville, the youngest of the three Neville brothers and a bishop at twenty-three. “’Tis joy to see you again, fair cousin of Gloucester.”

Richard thought the holy smile hovering on his lips strangely out of place on his rosy, youthful face, and he inclined his head in solemn greeting, unwilling to risk speech again.

With a flash of jewels, the majestic Warwick bowed. “Joy and good wishes, worthy cousin Gloucester.” Like his brother Lancelot, Warwick was handsome, but the lines of the Kingmaker’s face were sharply drawn, his demeanour stiff, and the nasal quality of his voice hinted of his famous arrogance.

“God’s greetings to you, my lord,” Richard said with a courtly bow, remembering his manners.

“May I present my Countess, Your Grace…”

Anne Beauchamp, Countess of Warwick, curtsied, rustling her high-waisted gown and fluttering the gauzy veils of her butterfly headdress.

Warwick continued. “My eldest daughter, Bella. And Anne.”

Richard made a proper bow to Isabelle. She was skinny and, though near his age, towered over him by almost a full head, making him feel uncomfortable. He didn’t like her bright pink dress or her pasty complexion; and anyway, he didn’t like girls. Girls were always preening like cats or jabbering like magpies— all except for his sister Meg. He turned to Anne.

He blinked as if he gazed into captured light, so bright a glow bathed seven-year-old Anne Neville. She wore a gown of shimmery golden gauze that floated in folds from the high waistline, and her hair, unbound beneath a flower circlet, flowed behind her bright as a field of buttercups. Her eyes were huge and reminded him of flowers.
Violets
, he thought, for their lavender was flecked with brilliant blues and ringed with deepest purple. She dropped her gaze and Richard had a moment to observe her unnoticed. She was about his height— not quite, though, he was pleased to realise—and she brought to mind not jabbering magpies, but an angel he’d once admired in the dazzling coloured glass of Canterbury Cathedral.

She curtsied with grace. He bowed, and caught the scent of lavender. Then the angel lifted her lids and gave him a shy look from beneath her lashes, as if she feared her full gaze would be too bold an intrusion, and what he saw there stunned him. The violet eyes shone with terror. Richard stared, speechless. Never had he expected a Neville to fear meeting him. He was seized with a fierce protectiveness towards the girl as he turned to climb the stairs of the Keep with his cousin Warwick.

~ * * * ~

“But those first days had golden hours for me.”

Anne followed her parents and Richard into the great hall, seized with excitement. She had dreaded the Duke of Gloucester’s arrival but when she’d looked up into Richard’s clear grey eyes, her anxiety had melted like icicles in the sun. The young duke was not what she had expected the King’s brother to be—not big and blond, loud and bold like Edward, whom she had once met and found fearsome. On the contrary, he wasn’t much bigger than she, and he seemed as shy as she was. She liked his thick dark hair and the funny little dimple in his chin, but there was a look about him that made her think he’d been hurt somewhere, though she didn’t see a bandage.

She watched him enter the huge chamber beside her father and uncles. He stood awkwardly in their midst as if he’d lost his way. Suddenly, she wanted to make him feel better. Forgetting her manners for the first time in her seven years, she said, “I have a pet squirrel. He eats marchpane out of my hand. Would you care to see, my lord?”

Richard was startled by the breach of etiquette, but even more by the sound of her voice, which was as sweet as the song of the lark on the morning air.

The Earl of Warwick swung around at the interruption.

“Very much, my lady,” Richard replied hastily, before Warwick could censure Anne. “If your gracious lord father permits?” He looked up innocently.