The Maiden and the Unicorn (44 page)

"Will we have snow afore Chistmas at Millom?" Thomas beamed at her. "Mistress, rest you easy. Richard has been negotiating for you since, what say you, Will? Long before Michaelmas? And our father will be pleased to hear that my lord of Warwick has acknowledged you. We were expecting the marriage anyway. Our brother is so besotted."

"Aye, we never thought that love could turn him into such a rebel," Will joined in softly. "He made it clear just now that it is his only reason for being here and we should be fools to commit ourselves to any treason until we knew the full score. Is something wrong? Will you sit?"

She shook her head but it was whirling. Richard Huddleston talking of love? What top was he spinning now?

Her voice emerged huskily. "I... Has Richard told you that we leave for Angers with my father two days hence?"

Will looked at her sharply. "But that is in Anjou."

"Yes, and did he tell you also that my father is to meet with the exiled lords and Queen Margaret?"

Her younger brother-in-law stared scowling at her father, comfortable at Louis's high table upon the dais, and swore softly. "Lord preserve us, Tom, what have we gotten ourselves into here?"

"Please God, nothing as yet. Oh, your grace!"

Margery spun around to find George of Clarence had been standing there smirking. With an arrogant grin at the Huddleston brothers, he took her hand and led her into the set as the musicians struck up. "Your new relatives talking treason already, tsk, tsk."

"Why are you embarrassing me further? Last night—"

"Last night, Meg, has turned out to be a godsend. Because of last night, the old man is taking you to Angers and you can be my eyes and ears. Couldn't be better if I had planned it."

"The Countess thinks I am already in your bed."

He let forth his awful whinny of a laugh which drew all eyes towards them.

"George!"

"Wave to my mother-in-law, Meg. What, no smile? You grow lily-livered, wench. What is the gossip? What says my Lord Montague?" He took her by the waist and whirled her deliberately past the Countess.

"Nothing as yet. He wants the news from here first."

"Poor fellow, caught between Brother Warwick and dear wonderful Ned. It grows more interesting by the minute."

Margery did not answer. Her father had observed her dancing with George and looked like he wanted to hammer her into the tiled floor with a thunderbolt. She was thankful when the music ended.

"Oh, dear me, here is old Richard trying to cover his horns. Take her, Huddleston, I have warmed her hand for you."

Anne was hanging on Huddleston's arm, her cheeks rose-coloured from the dancing but her face was drawn.

Richard's gaze was stony. "Cheer your sister, she fears the future," he said and left them.

Chapter 21

"Oh, look there!" Lady Anne's voice was horrified as the barge came into sight of Angers. The company moved to one side of the vessel and had to be swiftly bawled at to stop the whole enterprise capsizing shamefully in full view of Rene of Anjou, who was standing on the downstream wharf with his trumpeters.

Richard frowned. She was right. There was no welcome in those stones. The Chateau d'Angers looked as though it must have been the last word in defence when it was built to dominate the confluence of the rivers for some ancient Duke of Anjou.

Massive, unassailable towers, surmounted by the inevitable turrets, glowered down at the river from a formidable eyrie. It would have needed a hundred-foot rope to scale them. Mortared between, like curtains of stone, were massive walls, each some six hundred paces long. But there were no traitors' corpses hanging from them. Not yet.

The city lay closely, like a lover, west of the castle. Judging by the superfluity of gables and spires and the prosperous sprawl beyond its walls, it looked smugly confident that the chateau would protect it. Of course, it was just an illusion; continual bombardment by cannon would make any garrison capitulate eventually even if it did tie down the besieging army for some time. This castle would take months.

"It is a strategic masterpiece, my lady. The view of the country will be magnificent." Richard tried to lighten Lady Anne's gloom. Since he was officially of her household, he had done his best to keep the girl's spirits cheerful by concern for her comfort. He could tell that his behaviour had met with grudging approbation from Margery although she avoided his company as much as she could.

"Evidently they have gone to some trouble," she observed.

Brazen notes were floating across the water towards them but the colours on the shore were bright and joyful. The sunlight sparkled upon jewels not steel.

"A prisoner would not have a view, Master Huddleston." Lady Anne's self-containment was at breaking point; she was not appeased. Her arm was rigid within her half-sister's. The girl knew why she had been brought from Amboise.

"True, you can be a prisoner without chains," added Margery, casting her husband a bitter look from beneath burnished lashes.

"Those kind of prisoners often build their own Hell," he retaliated. "They wear the shackles on their eyes."

"I have never seen striped towers before, Master Huddleston." Anne Neville, knowing the tension between the two of them, was tactfully toeing the conversation into a safer direction. It had distracted her from her own fear.

Richard shielded his eyes. "Slate. Probably from a nearby quarry. The builders would have used local materials if they could. The dark bands make the castle more formidable, do they not?" They did.

Anne perused the stonework with a more careful eye. "I forgot you would understand about that."

"About what? Being formidable?" Margery said.

Anne turned from the rail in surprise. "Did you not tell her, Master Huddleston? Why, Margery, his family have quarries and mines aplenty. I would guess Sir John has more income from those than wool or produce, would you not say?" She bestowed a gracious smile upon him.

"You have the right of it, my lady. As for the telling, my wife has but to ask." He inclined his head and left the rail. Oh, Margery did not like that chastisement which was so well deserved. Perhaps now she would think him less an adventurer.

Thank God she had ignored him for the most part during the journey. He had needed time to think. By Christ's blessed mercy, he wondered where their future,
any
future lay. The times were such that a man might wake and become his brother's enemy by noon. Mayhap, within the next few days, he and his contrary wife would be severed well and truly by the Yorkist king's accursed shadow. Greater matters were afoot and to hoist a canvas against the tide might be to drown.

To others observing him, he must have seemed bemused, watching the oars rise and drop in unison except for that of the bargemaster who used his skillfully to prevent the vessel jolting into the wharf. Richard scanned the castle once more with a sigh and then dropped his gaze to the glittering crowd. The barge ropes were being looped and the planks slammed across the rail.

The favourite hounds leapt ashore and, in their midst, the King of France, beaked hat thrusting forward, greeted the elegant, fattened little rooster who awaited them. There was a masculine, mutual flinging of limbs, sleeves swirling, as if they were true friends, but it was common knowledge that France wanted to wrap its arms round prosperous Anjou and not let go. Then the Earl of Warwick was given the Gallic kiss on either cheek. Another man, somewhat younger, with a ducal coronet set round the brim of his high-crowned hat was introduced. Someone said it must be the Bitch's brother, the Duke of Calabria.

Richard assisted Lady Anne down the plank and held out his hand to his wife. Margery ignored it with a sweet smile and moved up to stand dutifully at her youngest sister's elbow. His hand itched to wallop the curvaceous rear beneath those slithery folds. And he would take a wager that she had deliberately lowered her neckline to show more cleavage.

Instinct told him he should dread her waywardness. Her present meekness in her father's presence was skin-deep. On the occasions when she could not avoid him, the little malapert teased him subtly, challenging his self-control at every opportunity, using her wit to prick him, her eyes to flash sudden provocative glances. Now that he had plumbed her delicious body, his torment was greater than before. He cursed inwardly; it had been a mistake to admit his body stirred at the sight of her.

Certes, he should never have married her. The widow at Doncaster would have brought him more manors. It was his unchristian lust for this blue-eyed Neville bastard that had landed him in this maelstrom, caught him up into the whirl of events. That was his dilemma: the depth of his miscalculation bothered him. If his judgment had been wrong with her, what other mistakes might he now make? Already his brothers were tarred with treachery, believing in his wisdom. Christ forgive him! His temples ached with the folly of it all.

The King of France was beckoning him to make obeisance to their host. His dog had already been introduced.

Close as touching, old René, King of Sicily (which he no longer possessed) and Duke of Anjou (which he did possess) was evidently not a man who spent months on campaign. Cake-coloured brocade, stitched with silver and gold thread, clad an overplump belly. Wispy, effete silver curls glinted between his broad rolled brim and shining forehead as he reached up a ringed hand to mop his brow. The other hand protruded from a voluminous, perfumed hanging sleeve, edged with miniver and lined with dark blue silk.

Richard kissed the ducal ring. Above, Louis XI was fulsomely extolling the virtues of Errour, and Richard, kneeling, was manoeuvred into promises to the Duke.

More dogs. At this rate, if ever he was allowed back into France or Anjou, he would require packhorses to load with puppies. With another bow, he stepped back and aside for others to take his place.

King René made an interesting study: a man of peace who had survived the bloody civil wars in France and gripped his duchy still, despite his land-hungry nephew, Louis XI, as a neighbour. This man would have conversed with Jeanne the Witch Maid who had led the French against the English and triumphantly crowned Louis's father. He would have touched goblets with Gilles de Rais who had been burnt for sacrificing babes to the Devil. He would have opened dreaded letters over the years, missives telling him his son-in law, Henry VI of Lancaster, was slowly losing every possession on mainland Europe save Calais, and finally that the kingdom of England was lost. How did he comfort a bitter, beggared daughter? One day, my dear, one day... And now one of the men who had wrenched her crown away was here within a dagger's kiss.

"What is to happen now?" muttered Margery.

Richard slowly turned his head. She was waiting for him to offer her his arm. "Ah... well... we all go to mass." They stepped off the wooden boards to confront a cobbled road that led straight up the hill through the city gate to the cathedral. It looked as though some apprentice had let spill a bale of scarlet cloth from the bishop's threshold to the foot of the hill. Impressive. And fatted with people on either side in festive mood.

"Did you know there was a St Maurice?" His voice sounded light but it was an effort not to worry about the gilded portcullis that might trap them in this optimistic city.

"The French saint of cuckolds and doomed alliances, I hope." She let go of his wrist to scratch her nose, her other gloved hand being occupied in holding her skirts out of the puddle that lay in her immediate path.

"If that is so, I hope we will
all
pray for guidance." They trudged after Lady Anne and the Duke of Calabria; the fabric, they discovered together, was slippery to walk over with dignity, especially with the sun grilling them through the heavy embroidery of their robes.

With lack of self-consciousness, Margery held up the courtiers following them when she plucked a sprig of heartsease out of the nosegay she had been given and handed it to a tiny girl who sat astride her father's shoulders. The uncalculated kindness pleased her husband. It was one of her virtues.

"What a wealth of new alehouses and stews for you to explore," she declared, staring with blatant interest down each narrow cross-street. "And I do believe they have cleaned the sewers for our visit."

Richard grinned and to annoy her touched his brim to a generously bosomed girl who was fluttering a kerchief at him from beflowered casement. "Such cleanliness betokens a serious attitude. The women are pretty and the city is wealthy and definitely covetable. I wonder if there are more kingdoms at stake than England's. Do you think they will give us a bedchamber to ourselves, mousekin?"