To the Tower Born - Robin Maxwell (12 page)

“That’s a good lad, Edward.” Rivers smiled. “You needn’t worry about anything.”

“What did you call me?” said Edward, suddenly serious.

“I called you Edward,” Rivers replied, straight-faced.

“Do you not think, my lord,” the boy said imperiously, “that

‘Your Majesty’ would be more in order?” Nell watched as Edward’s lips clamped shut and his face began to twitch madly. A moment later he roared laughing, and with a snarling grin Rivers reached out and gave him a good clout on the head. Then on a silent signal the pair spurred their mounts, and in perfect accord took off racing to the head of the vanguard.

Nell watched them go, warmed to her core. There was so much happiness around her. So much anticipation for the future.

She was traveling home to her dear father, and Bessie, and her friends on Totehill Street. A new young king was the hope and pride of England, and a beautiful man was in love with her. What more, she wondered with a deep, satisfied sigh, could a woman ask for than that?

. . .

idday on 29 April, having just passed through the vil-Mlage of Northampton, Nell rode at the head of the Royal Progress. At his own pleasure, King Edward was riding behind with the rear guard. Now Lord Rivers galloped to join her at the fore, and called a halt to the long column. He turned to Nell, his brow furrowed.

“I’m afraid Northampton is unsuitable for a stopping place,” he said. “It suffered a severe drought last summer, the town fathers just informed me. Should so large an army as ours impose itself for even one night, the meager stores of food they are portioning out to last them till the fall harvest will be dangerously depleted.” He looked round him, then skyward. “ ’Tis still early in the day. I think we should press on. Stony Stratford is fourteen miles closer to London.”

“But you promised Lord Gloucester we’d meet him at Northampton,” she said. “He’s already worried about joining up in good time with the king. It might try his temper if you were to ride closer to London without his permission.”

“I have no need of his permission, Nell. My sister the queen is Edward’s protector, and we ride under her orders. Gloucester’s temper is not my problem . . . nor yours.” He brought his horse side by side with her mount and reached his hand out to stroke her cheek.

Antony, during the five-day Progress, had become bolder and bolder with his open affection toward Nell. It was as though with the death of his brother-in-law, the authority of the king’s Ludlow “commandments” had dissolved. And whilst Rivers naturally and enthusiastically protected his nephew from all harm, he no longer felt constrained in his personal behavior with regard to Nell. She could not count the times he had kissed her hand. Gently stroked her shoulder. Even pushed a strand of hair back from her face. He was unconcerned whether anyone from the Ludlow Court observed his affectionate displays, and he was particularly warm, almost intimate with her, in the presence of the young king, who, Nell could see, heartily approved of his uncle’s attentions toward his tutor.

Whilst they had not spoken of such things aloud, she wondered if Rivers was contemplating a divorce from his wife. But they were in transit, and everything was happening so fast. Nell had not been able to write to Bessie since leaving Ludlow, and had received no letters from the princess since her father’s death. She felt for her dear friend at so terrible a time, but she selfishly wished to pour out her heart to Bessie about Antony—

her suspicions of his intentions. Her hopes. Her fears.

It would have to wait a few more days, Nell knew, till they reached London. Oh, the reunion with Bessie would be sweet!

And sad. And exciting too, for her friend’s brother was now King of England, and Nell herself had, in the past months, become like another sister to the boy.

“Besides,” Rivers continued, snatching Nell from her reverie,

“we have no way of knowing how far from Northampton Gloucester and his troops still are. I’ll leave a messenger in Northampton Towne, and when they arrive, he can ride to us at Stony Stratford and let us know. Don’t worry yourself, my love,” he added, then wheeled about and rode off.

My love
. Nell’s heart lurched in her chest.
He called me his love!

It was odd, for Nell had never thought of herself as a love-struck girl, like her friend Bessie, all atwitter over the unrequited amour with her uncle Richard. But here Nell was now, shuddering with delight at Antony’s first uttering of an endearment. What was next? she wondered. How much better might her life become?

Nell smiled to herself, her mount swaying a pleasant rhythm

beneath her, gazing up through the leafy maple boughs lining the road to Stony Stratford.
Heaven itself is the limit,
she suddenly realized.

he rest of the journey to Stony Stratford had proven un-Teventful. Antony had found wide-open fields to encamp the troops and servants, and a fine inn in town to house the king and his courtiers. They’d not yet settled into their rooms when the messenger left behind at Northampton rode into camp to say that Richard and company, a mere three hundred gentlemen retainers—hardly an army—had arrived at the original rendezvous.

Rivers quickly decided it would be politic to ride back and greet Gloucester, personally explaining the change in plans to avert any hard feelings, should any exist. To her delight, Antony invited Nell to ride back the fourteen miles, as he was eager for her company in relative peace and quiet. All that would be accompanying them would be a small guard—twenty men—and they could enjoy the long, lazy afternoon and evening, the sun not setting till nearly ten.

She’d accepted the invitation instantly, though jesting that her saddle-sore rump would be bruised and raw by the time they arrived.

Antony’s eyes twinkled. “Then I shall have to kiss it and make it better.”

Nell had laughed aloud. He was growing bolder by the moment.

Now they were riding back to Northampton side by side at an almost leisurely pace. The small guard, split in two, was well before and behind the couple, allowing them what was perhaps the closest thing to privacy they had ever known.

At first they had ridden in a pleasant and comfortable silence, enjoying the warm sun on their backs, and a cooling breeze that wafted in from the greenwood on either side of the road. When Rivers finally spoke he kept his eyes straight ahead.

“What do you suppose your father will say when I tell him I’m in love with his daughter?”

“Well, I doubt he’ll be surprised,” Nell answered, “as I’ve already made it quite plain in my letters to him that I feel the same for you.”

Rivers was clearly pleased and much relieved. “Does he approve?”

“Of his daughter loving a married man? ’Tis an unwelcome complication. That I am in love with the nobleman he most admires and respects in the whole world? He applauds my good taste.”

Rivers smiled. “I have already taken the liberty of speaking to our young king.” He paused thoughtfully before continuing.

Nell was barely breathing.

“I asked if he would be so bold as to overrule the protector, his mother, just this once, and insist that my marriage to Lady Philbin be annulled . . . so that I might marry you, Nell. Edward enthusiastically agreed.”

Tears stung Nell’s eyes and she found herself speechless. Her silence was so prolonged that Rivers turned a perplexed gaze on her. “Do you not wish to be my wife?”

“Antony, good heavens, of course I do!” He was visibly relieved. “The process may be long and somewhat complicated.”

“There’s no rush, my love.” The words were out of her mouth before she knew she’d said them. The idea of being Antony, Lord Rivers’s wife had hardly permeated her conscious mind. But Nell was joyful in the entire breadth and depth of her soul.

“I’ve promised Edward that no one should know our plan.”

“Of course. Antony—”

He turned to her, but again Nell found herself tongue-tied, flummoxed.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said.

“Tell me what I’m thinking.”

“That you wish the guard would suddenly disappear. That I would sweep you off your horse, drag you into the wood, and ravish you. Repeatedly.”

Nell laughed. “That is
precisely
what I was thinking,” she said.

“When did you begin reading my mind?”

He looked away then, but Nell could see there were tears in his eyes.

“When you called me love,” he said. “When you called me love.”

he sun shone a huge golden coin as it set over the TNorthampton field where Richard of Gloucester’s troops had made their camp. Rivers spotted the Yorkshireman first and called out to him.

“My Lord Gloucester!”

Nell and Rivers’s horses walked the final distance between them and came side to side with Richard.

“Rivers. Mistress Caxton. How goes it?” Gloucester smiled cordially, and Nell quietly sighed with relief.

“The king’s cavalcade made better time than anyone expected,” Rivers said.

“I’m pleased to hear.”

“We reached Northampton by ten this morning, but I could not see that the town could support so large a contingent of soldiers as ours, and the whole household as well. So we traveled on and found Stony Stratford the perfect stopping place.”

“How is my nephew?” Richard asked.

“Edward sends his warmest regards to you and looks forward to joining up tomorrow for the ride into London.”

“Good.” He eyed Nell. “And how are you, Mistress Caxton?”

“The rump is sore, but I am otherwise well.” She appraised Bessie’s uncle closely and could easily see the attraction.

“I hope you’ll dine with me tonight at Northampton’s inn.

I’ve arranged lodgings for myself, and I’m sure they can find two more rooms for you. Surely you’ll not wish to ride back to Stony Stratford tonight.”

“That’s very kind of you, Gloucester,” Antony said.

Nell noticed Richard’s three hundred gentleman soldiers setting camp. Their paltry numbers added to her relief.

“I’ll be a while yet getting my men settled,” said Richard.

“Why don’t you ride ahead and see about your lodgings.” Rivers and Nell turned their horses. “At the inn, then,” Rivers said.

Gloucester waved. “We’ll dine.”

t a corner table of the crowded Northampton Inn, ANell, Rivers, and Gloucester had been drinking wine together for what seemed like hours, and the food had not yet come. Upward of a hundred of Gloucester’s northern gentlemen were packed cheek by jowl in the noisy common room, tired from the long day’s ride, and drinking copiously as they too waited for their supper.

The inn’s owner, rotund and pig-faced, had donned his Sunday best for the greatest occasion he and his establishment would ever host. Every quarter hour “the new king’s two uncles” had been subject to his good-natured groveling. He would approach the table and, smiling a black-toothed smile, recount with delight, and far too many details, why the meal was so long in coming, making promises that the victuals, specially prepared for his honored guests, would be well worth the wait.

Of course Nell and Rivers gave no hint of the intimate nature of their relationship. Nell was simply the king’s most honored tutor—William Caxton’s daughter—who had kept Rivers company on the journey back from Stony Stratford to Northampton.

If Richard suspected their liaison, he gave no hint of it. And Nell, who, hours before, had felt a foolish girl in love, had re-verted to a cooler head, her observant faculties brought sharply to the fore.

She found herself harboring suspicions about Gloucester. His cordiality and good humor seemed odd, considering the humiliation he had received at Rivers’s hand on the jousting field at Ludlow not two months before. There was the brusque tone of his recent communiqués to Rivers, and what would have been an unpleasant surprise—that without his knowledge, plans had shifted, leaving the king’s party fourteen miles closer to London than he and his small army were. Nell could swear she detected a note of shrillness in Richard’s laughter, one too many shifts of his eyes toward the inn door. She could not shake the feeling that something was amiss.

Maddeningly, Antony seemed blissfully unaware, and there was no way to communicate her worries to him. Perhaps, thought Nell, she was giving Rivers too little credit. Perhaps he too suspected Richard’s geniality. But her lover had drunk several cups of wine too many and was verging on tipsiness.

Dinner had finally arrived—large steaming portions of roasted meat and crusty kidney pies. The hubbub in the common room rose to a deafening crescendo as hungry gentlemen fell on their food. Nell, Rivers, and Gloucester dug in at once and didn’t notice Harry Buckingham enter until he was looming over their table.

“Good evening!” he boomed above the din. The trio looked up to see the large, handsome nobleman who, to Nell’s eye, exuded an almost excessive vitality. She glanced at Richard, who stood to clasp Buckingham’s hand. She watched Gloucester’s face and saw him smile at Buckingham, a smile that Nell perceived to be both relieved and conspiratorial. Indeed, Buckingham’s presence here was curious, and that Gloucester had clearly been expecting him—all those glances toward the door—was worrying.

But Buckingham greeted Nell with respect, and congratulated Rivers on his beloved nephew’s accession. To Nell’s relief, Antony had quickly sobered with Buckingham’s appearance.

Without invitation, the man squeezed in with them at the table, declaring his exhaustion from the long ride in from Wales. Then, spearing a chunk of roast on his knife, he chewed it voraciously. He washed it down with a long quaff of wine and sat back with an air of complete satisfaction.

Gloucester called for another round of drinks and Harry began regaling the party with entertaining stories of his adventures on the road. Nell marveled at the man, and it even occurred to her that there was something magical about Harry Buckingham’s presence. Here was a man who, not two months before in Ludlow’s courtyard, had been publicly challenged by Lord Rivers, yet here he was laughing and joking with him, clapping him heartily on the back as a friend does a friend.

Gloucester and Buckingham had got Antony talking about his most famous pilgrimage, the one distinguished not by acts of extreme piety, but by his party’s violent assault by highwaymen outside Rome. Rivers seemed relaxed in the men’s presence, and Nell prayed that despite his levity, he was watching his companions’ behavior with a cool and dispassionate eye.