The Rose of York: Crown of Destiny (18 page)

“The Lady Eleanor,” Richard asked, blinking to focus his vision, “where is she now?”

“Dead, my Lord. She went into a nunnery immediately after the marriage between the King and Elizabeth Woodville was made public. Her heart was broken and she had no will to live. She died but four years later, in June 1468.”

Edward’s words came drifting back to him across the years:
I cannot if I would… I go in alone
. Edward had been hiding something, he’d known it even then. In a flash sudden as lightning out of a summer sky, all the fragments came together and the picture they formed was hideous. He had never known his brother. Edward had not only been debauched and deceitful, the murderer of a saintly King and of a brother—all of which Richard had accepted and forgiven—but he had been truly venal, the flower of wickedness. He’d sacrificed family and realm to his lust for a woman not only unfit to wear the crown, but without the right to wear it. He’d never repudiated her, not even when it became clear that she worked evil, and would always work evil, as long as she remained Queen. Had he confessed the truth while he was still alive, all could have been mended.
Now…

Richard pressed a hand to his brow to steady his dizzy head. Now the path to the future was obscured, rocky, forked, and more treacherous than he could ever have imagined. There would be those who would never believe, no matter what proof was offered. If he set his nephews aside, there could well be another civil war. He would give his own life to see that didn’t happen. Whether he exposed Edward’s bigamy or whether he chose to bury it, it had to be the right decision. One that would avoid bloodshed.

“You are not to say a word of this to anyone. You understand, to
anyone
!” He scarcely recognised his own voice.

Stillington nodded, clutching his rosary even tighter. “But my Lord Protector, you will take the throne, won’t you?”

“I know not, Stillington… I know not.”

“My Lord Protector. You must! You cannot refuse—the crown is yours by right! You are the only one who can save us!”

The old man’s eyes betrayed his terror. Aye, the Woodvilles would make short shift of him once they gained power. Of him, and them both—and many others. He turned away to the window, exclaimed in a voice filled with anguish. “Leave me, Stillington! Leave me to think. God knows, I need time to think!”

Anne awoke in the middle of the night to find that Richard wasn’t there and that she had been crying in her sleep. The dream had awakened her, not the gargoyles of her childhood. There had been several of those lately, but this dream was new, tender in many ways, and all the more painful because of it. In the dream she had been picnicking on the banks of the Ure. Ned and young George Neville were laughing and dropping lilies into her lap, while her mother smiled and Richard strummed his lyre and sang,
Blow trumpet, for the world is white with May! Blow trumpet, the long night hath roll’d away!

Then in the dream, Edward had come, tall and shining, stretching out his hand with a gift of shining fruit—luscious dark cherries and a purple plum. She had chosen the plum, and when she tasted it, a heavenly sweetness had flowed through her until a woman’s clawed hands snatched the cherries from Edward and flung them away, and then she saw that they were not cherries at all, but blood from the severed head of a boar. The sweetness in her mouth turned to bile, and she leaned forward to vomit. And awoke weeping.

Its significance was not lost on her. In Edward’s gift of the West Marches, the county palatine created out of Cumberland and the Scottish lands, her dream of a place in the North far from court, had come so close to attainment—so close—that she had felt its light shine on her face for one bright, brief moment. Then Fortune had plucked it away.

Anne sat up, pushed back the heavy velvet bed curtain, and groped for her slippers. She slid her feet into them and threw a blanket around her shoulders. She went to the window seat. The garden was bathed in moonlight. All seemed serene.

The garden lied
. In this place of intrigue and deceit, even the moonlight lied. How she missed the North. How she missed Ned! How she missed young George! She’d had him buried not in the Neville vault at Bisham Abbey, but at Sherriff Hutton, so he could remain close. Ned had loved him like a brother, and sick as he was, had insisted on visiting his tomb. Together they had knelt by the cold stone, and wept, and prayed. But there was no respite from the grief. Selfishly she had fled Middleham as soon as Ned had recovered from his illness, hoping to flee her grief as well.
Oh, Blessed Virgin, it didn’t help!
Wherever she went, she would never be able to forget that handsome young face, forget that he’d been the last of the Nevilles. Others bore the Neville name, but what did it matter when they didn’t carry in their veins the blood of her father and uncles? That line was dead, trod into dust. There would be no more John Nevilles, no Richards, Thomases, or Georges named in their memory to bear their blazon, to look back on them.

There was Ned, of course, but he was a Plantagenet, like the other sweet Edward who’d come to live with them. Bella’s boy. He bore her father’s title, Earl of Warwick, but in no other way did he resemble the magnificent, confident baron who’d been his grandfather. Her heart constricted. Poor little lad. He’d been given into Dorset’s care after his father’s death and Dorset had abandoned him at one of his manors in the West Country. The boy had even been denied the company of his sister who had been sent elsewhere to live these past five years.

Dorset has much to answer for
, Anne thought. Under his care, Bella’s son had grown into a shy, frightened eight-year-old who spoke with a stutter, if he spoke at all, and who seemed—maybe due to neglect—to have difficulty not only communicating, but comprehending. It was all Edward’s fault. How she hated him for what he had done! Not only to George’s little Edward for putting him into the care of a Woodville, but to his own little Edward for putting him into the hands of his maternal relatives and turning his heir into a Woodville, one who cringed with loathing and fear whenever Richard approached! And not only for that. She hated him for what he had done to her father, to her uncles, to Richard—to England! While he cavorted and drank and turned a blind eye to the feuds that infested his court, the price of his marriage to Bess Woodville had been paid in blood. Now his negligence had bequeathed them a terrible legacy.

A future of fear.

She looked up at the moon, which was nearly full, gleaming silver white. She looked back at the garden that was bathed in its light. All she saw were the shadows.

~*^*~

Chapter 19

“Here are snakes within the grass.”

Richard contemplated the future, unable to forget the past. Unable to forget that Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, who helped govern during the minority of Richard II, was savagely murdered by his nephew for his pains. That Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, Henry VI’s uncle, had been murdered by men who had turned the King’s heart against him. Yet neither had done what he had done. When young King Edward reached the end of his minority, where would the Protector run for protection?

Mass the next morning was nearly insufferable since old Bourchier, the Archbishop of Canterbury, never one for clear thoughts and concise language, droned on ceaselessly. The moment it was over Richard bounded out of the Abbey, turning heads and raising eyebrows as he hurried across the garth to the royal apartments of the Palace. In the Painted Chamber where his closest friends and advisors had gathered, he dismissed the servants and barred the doors. Then he disclosed Stillington’s secret. Howard, Rob, Francis, Jack, the Scropes, and Conyers had misgivings initially, but were of one mind in the end. Richard had to take the throne. Only Buckingham had no doubts whatsoever. He was jubilant.

“Why this gloom?” He poured wine for himself, grinning broadly. “We’re not at a funeral. This is a celebration!” He downed a gulp, smacked his lips, and surveyed the others. “Let’s drop the pretence and admit that what we dared to wish has become our legal right. We all know the realm needs a man, not a boy. A land ruled by a minor is a land torn by faction. I, for one, burn to serve you, Dickon, not some Woodville bastard. And you have no choice but to take the throne. For England’s sake—if not for mine, or your own!”

“What if others don’t agree with you, Harry? What if they resist? Civil war’s a price I’ll not have England pay.”

Buckingham appeared taken aback. “Then sound out the lords of the realm,” he said, recovering. “If they’re willing to support you, there’s no problem, is there? And Dickon, remember as you contemplate whether or not to accept the throne, that dukes of Gloucester have a habit of coming to bad ends. It’s worse for you. Bess would not let your boy live.”

“Call a meeting,” said Richard.

The full council met in the White Tower the next morning, promptly at ten o’clock. Stillington gave his statement. Each member examined Edward’s letter with utmost care and passed it to the next. Debate opened fiercely and raged from ten in the morning until two in the afternoon. Most of the lords—spiritual and temporal—were satisfied that Stillington spoke the truth, and the majority wished Richard to immediately proclaim it to the people.

“No,” said Richard. “We must test the minds of other lords, prelates, and men of influence, even commoners. We can have no dissension. If I take the throne, it will be with the consent of the people.”

Then Richard rode the barge back to his Crosby house. The sky was overcast and it was hot and humid. Flies buzzed in his face and the dank river smell offended his nostrils.
Court is like this
, he thought.
Rank and vile, a breeding place for vermin that would suck one’s blood dry if given the chance
. He mopped his face and neck with his handkerchief. As soon as his barge tied up at King’s Quay, a messenger rushed to him.

“Can this not wait?” Richard demanded, not slowing his pace as he crossed the landing dock and took his horse to Crosby Place. He dismounted in the cobbled court and ran up the steps into the house with the messenger in hot pursuit. A path opened for Richard through the crowded hall, then closed again, cutting off the messenger. A thousand voices rang in his ear, begging a moment.
Damn them all, I need a moment!
A moment to change his damp shirt, a moment with Anne. A moment without people clinging to him, stealing the air from his lungs, infecting him like some poisonous vine—without messengers waiting to hand him dire tidings of death, and secrets, and plots!

“My Lord…” panted the messenger, catching up with Richard as he strode into the private quarters of the house. “The Duke of Buckingham is most anxious you receive this report without delay!”

At the sound of his name, Buckingham emerged from a chamber in the hall.

“How did you get here so fast?” demanded Richard, finally halting.

“I rode the distance and brought him with me. He missed you at Westminster. Wait till you hear what he has to say!”

“I could happily wait forever,” said Richard, striding into the chamber.

“Then you’d be done for, Dickon—good as a cooked boar.” Buckingham grinned as he shut the door. Richard pulled off his gauntlets, threw them on a sideboard, and sank into a chair.

“Jesting aside, Dickon, this is no light matter. This man’s been assigned the duty of watching Jane Shore.” Buckingham waved a hand and the messenger spoke.

“My Lord, Jane Shore became the mistress of the Marquess of Dorset as soon as the King fell ill.”

Richard heaved a weary sigh. There was nothing new here. Lewd conduct was to be expected from such a woman and they had already suspected this. Impatiently, he loosened his collar.

“When the Marquess vanished, she began a liaison with Lord Hastings, whom she met again while visiting the King at the Tower…”

Richard stiffened. “She visited my nephew at the Tower?”

“Many times, my Lord. She has no children of her own and ’tis said she is fond of King Edward’s children.”

“Then there is nothing here of any great importance.”

“My Lord Protector, from the Tower Jane Shore went to visit the Queen…” Remembering Richard’s command that the Queen henceforth be called by her first husband’s name, he said, “Forgive me, my Lord, I mean Dame Grey—in Sanctuary.”

Richard froze. Buckingham threw him a meaningful look.

“Jane Shore… Jane Shore,” Richard muttered angrily. “Jane Shore loves Dorset, then she beds Hastings, then she visits Bess.” He leapt to his feet. “So that’s it! That’s how it has come about. Jane Shore has turned Hastings against us, Harry, probably at Dorset’s bidding. Hastings, that fool—that crazy old dolt—how could he espouse his cause with that of Bess Woodville?”

“Desperation, Richard… Desperation drives Hastings to the Woodville witch, as surely as it drove Warwick to the Bitch of Anjou.”

“But doesn’t he see, the stupid fool, that Jane Shore loves him not? That when the Woodvilles gain control, Bess—evil as she is—will destroy him? Doesn’t he see that they’re using him for their own ends?” And Hastings had accused him, Richard, of blindness and bad judgement!

“He’s in love. He’s ambitious. He sees what he wants to see.”

Richard sagged against the wall, feeling suddenly sapped of strength.

“Surely now,
you
see…” Buckingham warned, “that you can wait no longer?”

Richard pressed a hand to his aching head.

It was Tuesday, the tenth day of June, two weeks from Edward’s coronation. “We have a problem,” said Richard, glancing around the table at the faces of his closest advisors. There was Howard, Francis and Rob, his own kinsmen Buckingham and Jack, and the Neville kinsmen Conyers and the Scropes. His secretary, John Kendall, with whom he had forged a close bond of friendship during these days and nights of frenetic activity, sat at his writing desk, scribbling notes. “We must ascertain whether there’s a conspiracy in the making.” He related the facts of the case.