The Rose of York (29 page)

“He and his Duchess were at the betrothal, Sire. The agreement declares him heir to the throne if the Lady Anne and Prince Edouard have no issue. ’Tis said he is not happy with the arrangement.”

Edward’s mouth twisted. “Nothing short of the crown will content George, but clearly he’s gained naught by this that he didn’t already have. Is that not so, Dickon? Dickon, are you all right?”

Richard looked up, tried to reply, but no words came. He was in the thick of one of his fits, drenched in sweat, gasping for air. He tugged at his collar.

“Wine!” Edward roared. He pushed Richard into his throne, loosened his doublet, and made him drink.

Slowly the shivering ceased and warmth stole back into Richard’s frozen body. Edward dismissed the emissary and waved the others away. “Dickon, you know that if I could, I would change all this.”

“’Tis God’s will,” Richard managed hoarsely. “But to fight George…”

“I know. But George has turned his coat twice, Dickon. He can be made to turn it again.” He paced.

Richard’s head began to clear. Ill at ease on the throne, he made an effort to rise, but his dizzy head forced him down. Edward whirled around. “I have it…” He pounced on Richard like a lion and gripped his shoulders. “It’s a good plan, Dickon. It’ll work, I know it. But first things first.” He lowered his voice. “There’s unrest in Yorkshire and I’ve had no word from John or Percy. We must secure the North before Warwick returns.” He hesitated. “Can I count on you, Dickon?”

Richard lifted his head, met his eyes. Never in his darkest moments had he truly believed he would lose Anne. He had always believed things would come out all right in the end; that in the end, he and Anne would wed. He had been so certain.

He had been so wrong.
You’re either for me or against me,
Warwick had said. And he had meant it. Aye, Richard thought; he had regrets, but had he ever had a choice?

“
Loyaulte me lie
,” he whispered. Loyalty Binds Me. His decision, made long ago.

Edward squeezed his shoulder in a gesture that spoke more than words. Then, in an abrupt change of mood, he said, “Now, Dickon, it’s time to vacate my throne. I trust you didn’t enjoy it too much?” His blue eyes, though smiling, held a wary look that reminded Richard of the tiger at the Tower zoo.

“As a matter of fact, brother, I found it distinctly uncomfortable,” Richard replied.

Edward threw his head back and let out a great peal of laughter. With a slap that nearly felled him, Edward declared, “I knew I could trust you, Dickon!”

~*~

“Sire, sire, wake up! Your enemies are coming for you!” cried a voice in the night.

Edward stirred, rubbed his eyes. Torchlight smoked in his face. He couldn’t make out who was shaking him. “Go… away…” he mumbled, turning on his side. “Go… away…”

More hands grabbed him, shook him, shouted at him. He rolled back. Richard was leaning over him, a desperate look in his eyes. “What are you doing, brother?” Edward yawned. “I was dreaming… a nice dream… nipples, red as berries…”

“Wake up, Edward!” Richard demanded. “There’s no time to lose!”

Edward forced himself up on an elbow. “What are you talking about, Dickon? Why do you worry so much? Can’t you see I’m drunk?” He fell back, closed his eyes again.

A bucket of cold water splashed over him. He sat up, spluttering. “I’ll have your head for that, whoever it is!” Someone threw a towel at him. He dried his face.

“We’ve got to go, Edward,” said a familiar voice. “Your enemies are indeed on the march.”

Edward grinned playfully. “What enemies, Hastings? I have no enemies, have I?”

“Tell him, Carlisle!”

Now Edward recognised the man with the torch. The sergeant of his minstrels. “What are you doing here, Carlisle?” He yawned. “You’re… supposed to be… up north with Montagu…”

“The Marquess of Montagu, Sire—he’s espoused his brothers’ cause! Warwick has landed at Plymouth and the Marquess is marching to join forces with him. He’s coming here, to Doncaster, with his army of six thousand men at his back. There’s no time to be lost.”

“Now I know you’re mad! Be gone, let me sleep.”

“My lord, ’tis true! He said you sacrificed him. That you took away his earldom and gave him a magpie’s nest to live on. You must flee—he’s coming south, he and all his army, for they’re loyal to him.”

“You have it all wrong, Carlisle. We’re the ones going north to join forces with
him
. Montagu’s my friend, and truer than a brother…” he broke off at the irony, gave a chuckle. “Yet your sorry tale has a touch of truth. He’s much loved by his men, and if ever he turned his coat they’d stand with him to a man… Now leave me. We’ve a hard day’s ride tomorrow.” Edward collapsed on the bed, drew his blanket up to his chin.

“By God, ’tis the truth! Fugitives are pouring into the camp, and all tell the same story,” Hastings bellowed.

Startled by Hastings’s harsh, uncustomary tone, Edward’s eyes flew open.

Richard pushed Hastings out of the way. “Edward, it’s true… John’s turned traitor.”

Edward reached up, grabbed his brother’s neck, and stared into his eyes for a long moment. He flung him back. He’d seen what he needed to see. He seized the cote Anthony Woodville held out to him, threw on his boots and strapped his sword to his side. Without a word he thrust open the shutters and leapt out the window of the farmhouse where they had halted for rest. The others followed. Vaulting on their horses, they fled east through the night.

~*~

“Holland!” the captain announced.

“’Tis a relief, Sir Captain. For a while, I almost doubted we’d make it,” grinned Edward.

Richard’s gaze swept the dirty, hungry, downcast faces of the men who huddled in the cold, driving rain, before fixing on his brother. Edward was at his best when things were at their worst. He had fled his land and left his pregnant wife in Sanctuary. He had been pursued by enemy vessels of the Hanseatic League and had almost drowned in a gale off the shores of Norfolk. Were it not for Edward’s friend, the Governor of Holland, who’d appeared by the mercy of God to ward off the Easterlings, he and Edward and their seven hundred men would now be dead or captive. Yet Edward could still jest, while beneath his wet cloak he, Richard, trembled with dread to taste the bitter cup of foreign exile for a second time. He didn’t know how Edward could take so little in life seriously, when he himself could take nothing lightly. The world thought them brothers. The world was wrong. Edward was fearless. A true Plantagenet.

“We’re a sorry lot, are we not?” Edward laughed, giving Richard a hearty slap on the back. “A throne’s been lost and between us we’ve not enough coins to fill a wine cup!”

Aye
, Richard thought. That was yet another problem: how to pay the ship’s master for the trip. Even as the thought occurred to him, Edward removed his fur-lined cloak and offered it to the captain. “Sir Captain, will you accept this as payment?”

“Sire, I’ve no use for such a fine cape but I’ll take it, for I know ’tis all you have. Mayhap I can find a king with a throne and sell it to him!”

Edward threw back his head and roared with laughter. He hung an arm around the man’s shoulder. “Sir Captain, I tell you what—when I get back my crown, I’ll buy it from you myself! And at a pretty price—how’s that?”

“May God make it soon, Sire, for as the Blessed Virgin knows, I’ve sore need of the money.”

Edward roared again. Still laughing, he sauntered down the gangplank. On the wharf, he turned. “See you in London before the year is out, good Captain!”

“Aye, Sire!” the man called from the deck. “You surely have my prayers on that.”

~ * * * ~

“A doubtful throne is ice on summer seas.”

Richard felt as if time had rolled back, so little had changed in Bruges in the ten years since he’d walked its cobbled streets. It was still as cold as he remembered, and the canals looping through the walled city were still crowded with swans and boats as before. The only difference was that more arched stone bridges and windmills had been built in the meanwhile.

In the tavern of The Blind Donkey, near the Eglise Notre Dame where he had gone to meet his old friend William Caxton two days before All Hallow’s Eve, Richard slipped Anne’s letter back into his doublet. Until that moment at Westminster when he’d first learned of Anne’s betrothal, he’d believed with utter certainty that they would wed some day. Even now he dared to hope, and he wondered at the incredible foolishness of the human heart, and the stubbornness and tenacity of hope.

He drew his worn cloak close and looked around him. The inn was boisterous with laughter and the din of clanging dishes, the air thick with the odour of sweat and the aroma of freshly baked bread. His stomach growled again and he was reminded that he was hungry. For a moment he thought about ordering a portion of mutton leg, but the few coins he carried jangled thinly in his purse, and he quickly decided against it. At this point in his life, meat was a luxury he could ill afford. He swivelled on his bench seat and warmed his hands on the fire behind him. He was not only hungry, but thoroughly chilled from the short walk from the Governor’s Palace where he and Edward lodged at the governor’s invitation. Bruges was no colder in winter than Yorkshire had been, but in Yorkshire he’d had fine furs and heavy mantels. Here he had only debts and favours he might never be able to repay.

He lifted his eyes to the window. Snow flurries were falling and people hurried past, bent against the wind. On such a day in 1460 he’d arrived in Bruges, mourning the death of his father and brother, leaving another brother behind to fight for his life. He raised his cup and downed a gulp of wine. He hated Bruges and the memories it brought back. The city erased the years between his two exiles, made him feel as confused and helpless as he’d been at seven, and flooded him with a blind, painful anger. Even now, the great cry of his childhood was welling up again:
It isn’t fair!

Absorbed in his thoughts, he didn’t hear the whinny of horses, feel the blast of cold air that admitted his friend, or see the old burgher thread his way to the far corner table where he sat. He looked up with a start at Caxton, who had given him refuge when he’d fled Lancastrian vengeance as a boy. Time hurtled backwards and he forgot where he was, forgot that a decade had passed between. Unable to move or speak, he stared at the blue eyes twinkling in the red-cheeked, white-bearded face. Recovering his composure, he bid Caxton welcome and gratefully accepted the secret letter from Meg that the rich English merchant delivered.

They bantered. Richard drained his cup and tried to drown his thoughts and noisy stomach, while Caxton sipped hippocras and spoke of a printing press he’d seen in Germany and his hopes of owning such a machine one day. “Then I would print books by the hundreds,” the old merchant said. “And if I live long enough, everyone will own a Bible…” He broke off, grinned sheepishly. “A dream, I know. Merely a dream.”

“We must all have our dreams,” Richard said. “We could not go on without them.” He poured more wine.

“I know of your predicament,” the old burgher said in a different tone, “and can offer you money, my lord, but alas, not enough to launch a navy against Lancaster. For that you need the support of the Duke of Burgundy and the rest of the English merchants of Bruges. All else I have is yours.”

“I thank you, my friend Caxton, but for now all is provided us most generously by the Governor of Holland, who has given us warm welcome in his home. Seigneur de Gruthuyse rescued us from the Easterlings, you know. He’s a true friend—as you are—and will be richly rewarded when Edward regains his throne.”

Richard spoke with a confidence that belied his fears. They had been in Bruges two months and the truth was their debts were mounting, their future never so uncertain as now. To their stunned surprise, Meg’s unpredictable husband, Charles of Burgundy, had entertained the Lancastrian dukes of Somerset and Exeter at his court, but had refused to see them.

Like Henry of Lancaster, Charles was a descendant of Edward III through John of Gaunt and, despite his marriage to Meg, his heart remained Lancastrian. He had supported Edward against Warwick in the summer, but Warwick’s espousal of the Lancastrian cause had won his sympathy. When Gruthuyse had informed Charles that he’d saved Edward from the Easterlings, Charles had cursed, not thanked, his Governor. What would happen if Charles ordered Gruthuyse to throw them out? Where would they go? Who would help them then? Meg sent them money and letters by the hand of their mutual friend Caxton, but even Meg couldn’t go against Charles if he demanded they leave Burgundy. The old burgher’s voice cut into Richard’s thoughts.

“’Tis hard times we live in… Is it true the Kingmaker executed Tiptoft?”