The Maiden and the Unicorn (59 page)

Huddleston bowed over her proffered hand. "I shall wait on your grace as soon as I may. Have I your permission to speak with her?"

The Queen swept to the door and turned. "If you must." Her gaze fixed upon the guard. "Bestow her in a cell with a window and see that she is fed within the hour. She is not to be harmed for now."

The gaoler closest to Margery had understood nothing and slid a hand around her throat.

"Out!" snarled Huddleston, dealing the wretch such a staggering blow on the side of the face that he nearly fell upon the brazier. "Out before I turn you into a eunuch. And you, cut the bitch loose!" There was a tired jagged edge to his voice that Margery had never heard before but his fury gave her hope.

She searched his face, her lips trembling, seeking a glimmer of compassion as the soldier freed her from her bonds and hauled her roughly up.

Richard's eyes swept witheringly over her nakedness. "Well," he drawled in French, "you are even more of a fool than I took you for. It seems I shall be well rid of you." He swung on his heel and flung the door wide, nodding at the guard.

The man grabbed her shoulder and thrust her forward and the other gaoler laughed maliciously. Margery's stomach rebelled at last. She began to retch.

Her husband turned his face towards her at the sound, his eyes uncaring. He made a gesture for the soldier to stand back. When she was done, she leaned her shoulder against the wall gasping and brushed the saliva off her chin, sending him a look of poisonous hate. He waited irritably, tapping his crop against the boot leather, then he swung his cloak from his shoulders and thrust it at her. "Cover yourself!" he snarled.

His spurred boots echoed malevolently behind her as she was hauled up the tower stairs and thrust into a small chamber lit by a small upper grating.

Richard Huddleston was going to do nothing to free her.

* * *

Richard awoke feeling saddlesore and guilty that he had not been able to battle against the fatigue of four days' hard riding, especially knowing that his disobedient Margery had spent another night locked up, cursing him. Someone's servants, probably my lord of Concressault's, had heaved him onto a vacant palliasse in a small circular chamber sometime before midnight. They had considerately removed his spurs and dumped his saddlebag beside the bed.

The latter was moving like a woman's belly heavy with child. Richard remembered why, groaned and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. One of his possessions had chewed a hole out through the bag's side, made a puddle by the wall and was gnawing the leather strap. With an oath, Richard hauled the bag up beside him and fumbled through its contents with a swift prayer to the saints who represented the inebriated. Well, no, not the inebriated—it had been fatigue that had sent him to sleep in the middle of the Queen's peroration on her bloody plan for disposing of the person of the Usurper Edward if no one else had already beheaded him.

Richard drew out the second sleepier puppy and set it down. It groggily wagged its tail at him and squatted immediately. They were to be his farewell gesture to the King of France. Even if they were not deerhounds, mayhap Louis, who appreciated such humour, might be less zealous in revenge when he learned that Richard had abducted Margery.

The rest of his hastily gathered possessions were miraculously intact. A tame apothecary in Southward had sold him not only sufficient sleeping powder to flatten the puppies for the journey but enough to give the entire garrison of Amboise respite from guard duties. With a groan, Richard stiffly forced his much-travelled body upright, heaved the saddlebag over his shoulder, scooped the puppies up and headed for the kennels.

From there, it was easy to slip into the town and materialise at the Levallois house in time to break his fast. He found only the merchant being waited on at the board. Adéle and Katherine were with Jacques's widowed cousin in Orleans.

"
Merde
!" exclaimed his surprised host. "So it was you who rode in after
couvre-feu
last night."

"Complete with festive ribbons and a surfeit of whistles. They will be celebrating all day up at the chateau."

"Lord Warwicque has taken Angleterre
already
?" Jacques Levallois blinked at Richard in amazement.

Richard rubbed the bridge of his nose and nodded. "Aye, like you, I thought it would be a long and bloody campaign."

"And the gorgeous Edward?"

"Fled like a servant who has feasted in his master's absence. They may have 'headed him by now. You know why I am here."

Jacques sent his servants from the room with a casual hand and chewed his bread thoughtfully before he finally spoke.
"
Eh bien, mon compère
, you are reconsidering your allegiance then?"

"I may have little choice." Richard laid down his spoon, his appetite dull. "There is, however, the matter of my wife being brought before an ecclesiastical court for adultery and, Jesu forbid, other matters. By the way she boasted in her cups last night, Margaret d'Anjou will baste Margery and cook her in the market place."

The older man stolidly chewed on, showing no surprise at the news, but Richard felt as though he was being measured for a new cote. "What I am wondering," Jacques remarked eventually, "is just how thin you are." He glanced down apologetically at the belt encompassing his houppelande. "
Moi
, I am too large a stopper for this particular flask."

His guest raised an eyebrow. "Are you saying you and your friends might help me, Jacques?"

"Because of my father-in-law's murder and for the sake of the town? Why not? You are very fortunate that I can,
my friend
.
"
The earth brown eyes glittered with amusement.
"Le bon Dieu
be praised that Madame 'uddleston has not the generous dimensions of the Queen of France."

* * *

With another meal that had taste and substance inside her, Margery felt her inner self revitalising, like a shoot pushing skywards after a long, freezing winter. Through the barred window she could smell the autumn leaves above the wood smoke and another heavier odour which she suspected came from the nearby lions. Even a few beams of sunlight lit the floor during the morning. But
he
did not come.

Some of her belongings were brought to her, obviously at his command, among them her girdle purse containing combs and hairpins. What had he told her sisters? Not the truth.

Certes, the truth was that her husband had indeed decided for the winning side. With Ned surely dead by now, Richard Huddleston would be the last man to raise his sword to crown George for the House of York. And she had jeopardised his careful plans. To please the Queen, would he drag her before the bishops and force her to walk barefoot in a thin shift carrying a taper while the crowd hurled filth at her in a fit of hypocritical virtue? And even if he was merciful enough to petition her release, what then? The Queen had promised him a wealthy heiress. He could auction George of Clarence's message for her dowry thrice over.

Pacing the cell, she counted as she had done every day of her captivity, trying to keep her body fit, while she tormented herself. She remembered every hurt and buckled on the armour of hate and self righteousness, vowing she would survive and the Lord God could damn her enemies to Hell! After all, had she not been steadfast in her loyalty to Ned? But with darkness, the tears flowed for what might have been. The guard banged on the door and cursed her, so she turned her face into the rough fabric of the mattress and cried silently.

* * *

She woke from her tormented sleep so swiftly. It was yet night but a man had entered her cell as insidiously as an assassin. She sprang off the mattress and shrank against the wall. The door was nudged open. The single light beyond showed her the two guards slumped against the walls, one of them snoring loudly.

"I hope these fit." Her husband's fingers closed about her wrist and drew her out into the candlelight. He was already unbuckling her belt and holding out the hose. Wordlessly she obeyed. It was he who lifted the gown up over her head and guided her fingers into the leather sleeves. Another shadow materialised beside him from the coils of the stairs and in obedience to Richard's signal, the man heaved one of the guards into the cell and on to the mattress. While Margery transferred her purse to the leather belt he had brought her, Richard, his face taut and grim, rearranged the second guard with his back to the passageway. Then he swiftly fed her discarded clothing out through the guards' arrowslit window.

She made no attempt to question him. If he could magic her outside the castle, then she would re-evaluate her safety later. What she was not expecting was to be led back down to the fouler passageways and then shoved headfirst after his fellow conspirator into a small wooden cupboard at shoulder height.

"I hope you have strong elbows," muttered Richard as he guided her knees up into a crawling position on the ledge and gave her a whack forwards as if she was a testy mule.

"Dear Jesu!" she protested.

"Keep moving if you value your life!" he whispered, forcing her onwards as he scrambled in after her, and cursing as he manoeuvred in order to bolt the small door behind them.

The space immediately behind the wooden cupboard was broad but as Margery edged forward, following the shuffle of the other man's movements, she could feel the walls closing about her. Walls? No, it was rock.

"This is the worst part, madame," her guide reassured her.

"We had to do it twice," Richard pointed out, narrowly avoiding colliding with his wife's boot as she hesitated.

Crawling through burrows could safely be left to rabbits, Richard reflected as they painfully edged the next hundred paces. In patches, the limestone beneath his forearms was smooth as glaze; elsewhere a jagged miscellany of rubble bruised and bit into his knees.

His wife slid forwards in the chilly darkness without complaining, but he could hear the very fear in her breathing. It seemed an eternity before he could feel the faint movement of air upon his face. He had been down in the mines his father owned and seen where their men worked. Now he vowed that if he ever set eyes on his inheritance again, he would make his father pay their labours twofold.

Margery collapsed on her arms with a gasp of relief as she emerged into the cavern where Jacques and the other men awaited them. Then she was blinking in wonderment, like an owl caught in daylight, for the roof was at least twelve paces high, knobbed with points shiny as udders, and he doubted she had ever seen the like of it in her life. But there was no time for pointing out the peculiar features of limestone. Richard set his hands upon her thighs and dragged her up onto her knees.

"
Felicitations, madame
!" Jacques Levallois caught her by the elbows and lifted her to standing before turning to clasp her husband's hand. "It went smoothly?" Of the four men who awaited them, the merchant was the only one unmasked.

"Aye, all to plan. The English would have lost Agincourt had they faced you,
mes braves
." Richard's grin embraced them all as he clapped a grateful hand on the shoulder of the lanky man who had accompanied him. "But let us move on." He saw Margery's jaw slacken as Jacques tugged a cloth from his belt and bound it about her eyes. She squeaked as one of the large men tossed her up over his shoulder. "Part of the agreement, mousekin," Richard reassured her.

When they finally took off his blindfold, he found himself on the bank of the river beside a small craft. An oarsman sat ready. They had rested Margery in the boat already. He hoped she was up to the journey that faced them. In the light of the waning moon, her face was waxen.

"What can I say?" Richard gratefully embraced the large man and shook each of the others by the hand before he stepped into the boat. The merchant's friends heaved the small vessel forth; it was a little dung pellet of rebellion to hurl against the King who was strangling their town to keep his heir free of pestilence.

Richard said a prayer to St Christopher and resigned his safety to the boatman, trusting he knew the dangerous eddies and shallows. They were at the mercy of a fast-flowing, can tankerous river.

At his feet Margery stirred, unwinding herself from the cocoon of his cloak, swiftly sending a panicky hand to check that the purse at her belt was still in place. Did she still carry the Duke's message? "Am I the ballast?" she complained.

"No, you are the third oarsman. Keep down."

She lay still, the pike of his shoe across her hip, and sent a prayer to St Leonard, the saint of prison breakers, then her argumentative nature surfaced again. She raised her head, staring at the stranger who rowed beneath the moon with the stoic expression of a weary horse towing a cart. "But we are heading
upriver
."

Listening for sounds on the bank, watching for torchlit soldiers, Richard did not answer her. He shook his head and cautioned silence. The oarsman nodded agreement and kept close to the bank; it was the painful but only way to travel upstream against the current. At least the wind was behind them, confusing the wavelets.

Eventually Richard drew her up to sit beside him.

"I thought you were leaving me to the bishops." Her voice was like a raw wound rubbed with salt.

"It was tempting. When is the custom of women upon you again?" There was an angry hiss at the intimacy of the question. "Lady, I want to know how long I can safely keep you garbed in man's attire." His voice lightened. "Of course there are ways to ensure..."