To the Tower Born - Robin Maxwell (13 page)

Perhaps, Nell thought, Buckingham was simply thick-skinned. Perhaps that conspiratorial look she believed she’d seen pass between Gloucester and Buckingham had been imagined.

Am I just an overly suspicious and ridiculous girl, dreaming up trouble
where there is none to be found?
she wondered.

By midnight all the food was eaten and everyone was desperately road-weary. The common room was nearly empty, all the gentlemen having gone up to their beds. Good nights were exchanged with promises to meet before dawn for the ride down to Stony Stratford, where they’d join with the king and his army for the final ride into London.

The inn’s owner insisted on personally showing Nell and Lord Rivers up to their accommodations—climbing a central staircase to the second floor, then to opposite ends of the sprawling establishment, dropping Rivers at “the Dormer Room.” The innkeeper beckoned Nell to follow him, making it impossible for her and Rivers to say a proper good night to each other. With a longing smile she followed the waddling man down the long hall to “the Rose Room,” a tiny but surprisingly clean single-bedded place under the eaves, with a single window opening onto the inn’s yard.

Once the innkeeper had shut the door behind him, announc-ing his intention to show the others to their rooms, Nell collapsed on the bed. The mattress was lumpy and, under the coverlet, was likely crawling with unmentionable vermin. She was considering sleeping atop the blankets when she heard two familiar voices wafting in from outside. She was forced to climb to the corner of her bed to put her ear to the window, where now the sounds from the courtyard below had become very clear.

It was Gloucester and Buckingham speaking quietly, unaware that their voices were being funneled and magnified into Nell’s hearing.

“Some decisions need to be made, and they must be made quickly,” said Harry.

“Go on,” said Richard.

“Rivers must be taken down at once.”

“Taken down?” Gloucester sounded mystified.

“Arrested,” said Buckingham. Clearly Gloucester was hesi-tant. “Arrest him, Richard. For treason.” Nell felt as though the breath had been knocked out of her.

But she pushed closer still to the window, not daring to miss a word.

“Disperse all the troops he’s brought with him from the Welsh Marches.” Buckingham’s voice was pure vitriol. “Send a strong message to our sister-in-law the queen.” Gloucester spoke then. “All Rivers’s troops are in Stony Stratford. He came back to Northampton with only a small guard.”

“They’ve been seen to,” said Buckingham. “Even now my men—I brought three hundred Welshmen—are surrounding the inn. There’s no escape for Rivers.” Desperation surged like a great wave over Nell. She wished to rush immediately to Antony’s room to warn him, yet she could not afford to miss a syllable of this conversation.

“You look surprised, cousin,” said Harry Buckingham. “I wrote and told you I was your man. Completely and utterly at the protector’s command. I am here to serve you. See that your brother’s will is carried out, and that England can rest easy during Edward’s minority.”

The “protector’s” command?
Nell’s mind raced.
What was Harry
Buckingham saying? Queen Elizabeth was the king’s protector, just as
she had been during Warwick’s rebellion when Edward the Fourth had
been exiled on the continent. Now Buckingham was calling Richard of
Gloucester protector! Something was horribly, horribly wrong.

Nell flew out her door and raced down the long hallway toward Antony’s room.

It was too late.

A small company of soldiers wearing Harry Buckingham’s distinctive red livery had reached the top of the central stair and was heading straight for Rivers’s door. There was nothing she could do. She stood helplessly as they pounded on it and shouted for him to come out lest the door be broken down. Yorkshire gentlemen in their nightclothes emerged from their rooms to investigate the ruckus, crowding the hall and making it nigh on impossible for Nell to see Antony as he emerged from behind his door.

The first glimpse she got of him was as he was being marched down the staircase. Their eyes locked briefly, and he had only time to mouth “I love you” before he was gone.

Nell followed the red-uniformed soldiers down the stairs, but they had already hustled Rivers out of the inn’s front door.

In the empty common room she found Gloucester and Buckingham. They were not yet aware of her presence.

“Tomorrow we’ll ride to Stony Stratford with our six hundred men,” said Buckingham. “Arrive at dawn.” Richard seemed more confident now. A man ready to take charge. “We shall take possession of the king’s person. Set him properly on the throne.”

Nell saw Buckingham smile a slow smile. “You’ll assume the protectorship, Richard, rightfully yours. A new day is dawning in England, and a York son is rising in glory.”

“My lords.” Nell had managed to find her voice. The men turned to see her standing there.

“Mistress Caxton,” Richard began. “I’m very sorry for the disturbance. Lord Buckingham and I have been forced to right a terrible wrong.”

“Why has Lord Rivers been arrested?” she asked, trying to keep a steady tone.

“He and his sister, and the other members of the Woodville family—in particular her son, Lord Grey, have attempted to usurp the protectorship,” Richard explained.

“But the queen
is
England’s protector,” Nell argued.

“She was, Mistress Caxton, until her husband added a deathbed codicil naming
me
to that title,” said Richard. “The queen knew this, but failed to inform me. Indeed, she failed even to inform me of my brother’s death.” This was stunning news. Nell’s face must have reflected her dismay.

“Do not worry yourself about it, Mistress Caxton,” Buckingham said in a decidedly condescending tone. “Everything is well under control.” Dismissing Nell, he turned to Richard. “Come, we’ve much business to attend to.” Buckingham threw an arm round Gloucester’s shoulders and began walking him away.

But Richard turned back and spoke to Nell in a kindly tone.

“Do try to get some sleep. We ride for Stony Stratford before dawn. I’m sure the king will be in sore need of your friendship.”

“Yes, my lord.” As the two men left the common room, Nell could not be sure if she had uttered the words or only thought them, for her body and mind seemed altogether paralyzed. In the space of a few moments, her heaven on earth had collapsed entirely. The man who was her future had been taken from her, accused of treason. The king—the means by which

Antony might be released from his marriage—was now under the control of
whom
? Richard of Gloucester? Harry Buckingham?

What must the queen be thinking? How would poor Edward respond to the news of his dearest friend’s arrest? And where was Bessie? What on earth was her friend going through at this moment?

With leaden feet, Nell climbed the central stairs and returned to the Rose Room. She sat on the bed, her back straight, her hands folded in her lap.
I must pull myself together,
she thought.
Use logic and deduction and reasoning. I must find a way to
help Antony. Stay strong for Edward. Be very, very brave.

But all Nell could do was weep.

here had, in the end, been no possibility of sleeping, so Twhen Nell deemed it a proper hour—it was still dark—she gathered the few things she’d brought with her to Northampton Inn and tiptoed down the central staircase. A few of the northern gentlemen had begun stirring. Most were still in their beds, catching a few final moments of needed rest.

Nell was beyond exhaustion. Trying desperately to think straight so as not to further worsen the situation, she had finally decided that she must attempt to see Antony again. She must find where Lord Rivers was being held, all the time praying that he had not yet been sent away.

Outside the inn’s front door she spotted two of Buckingham’s soldiers. Certainly they were meant to be standing guard at the lamplit door, but they had clearly just woken and were still rubbing sleep from their eyes, downing the day’s first rations of beer and biscuit. She approached the soldiers with forced cheerfulness.

“Morning, lads,” she said, “or is it even morning yet?” Nell flashed them a pretty smile.

“Not the way I feel,” the taller one grumbled.

“It durn’t matter how much sleep Walker gets,” the shorter, pudgy guard offered. “ ’Tis never enough.”

“Do you know when we’ll be setting out for Stony Stratford?” Nell asked.

“Soon, by my reckoning,” the tall guard answered. “My Lord Buckingham plans to join up with the king before dawn. And ’tis fourteen miles’ ride.”

“I’d say they’re striking camp as we speak,” Pudgy added.

“Where is it you’ve camped your army?” Nell asked.

“With Lord Gloucester’s men, in the meadow north of town,” said the tall guard.

Without taking her eyes from the red-liveried soldiers, Nell slowly withdrew a tiny pouch from her bodice. Their eyes, however, were drawn unself-consciously down to the soft round tops of her breasts and lingered there as she took two small gold coins from the pouch. Only when they saw metal glittering in lantern light was their attention drawn away from her flesh.

“The king’s uncle Lord Rivers was taken into custody last evening by your company,” Nell whispered in a husky voice.

“Do you know the gentleman’s whereabouts?” The soldiers were suddenly alert to the bribe and the danger.

The pudgy guard was also alert to the opportunity. “We might know his whereabouts, miss.”

Nell observed the taller soldier’s eyes darting, his breathing grow shallow as he prayed his cohort would strike a profitable bargain. She slowly, seductively, plucked two more coins out of the purse.

“They put ’im in the bakehouse,” the tall soldier blurted out.

Pudgy gave him the evil eye, having hoped to do some further dealing. But Nell was massaging the purse in her palm, and the man’s eyes grew hopeful again.

“If I wished to speak to the gentleman unnoticed . . .”

“I saw a window round the back. No guards there,” Pudgy offered, having decided this was the limit of the young lady’s needs and the extent of her purse.

Nell placed three coins in each soldier’s hand and said,

“You’ve done a good deed, lads. I thank you.”

“Thank
you,
ma’am,” said Pudgy.

“Approach from the south,” the tall one said. “And keep your voices low. Very low.”

With a smile, Nell left the guards and picked her way round the back of the inn. The bakehouse wasn’t far, but she was forced to move behind a copse of trees to its south in order to approach without being spotted by the pair of soldiers standing sentry at the bakehouse door. In the moonlight she was able to see the window in the back, and with all the stealth her rustling gown and the sucking mud under her slippers would allow, she crossed to the small stone building.

The window had been left slightly ajar, and Rivers’s jailors had thankfully left their captive a single candle burning. She could not see him anywhere amidst the floury worktables and sacks of grain, nor near the round-topped oven.

“Antony,” she whispered in the lowest of tones.

He popped up so suddenly at the window, she gasped.

“Shh!” he warned.

“You startled me.”

“I was sitting on the floor just under the window. Oh, Nell—”

“My love, have they told you anything?”

“Not a word since my arrest. Neither Gloucester nor Buckingham has been to see me.”

“Antony . . .” Nell hesitated, finding the words hard to say.

“You have been deceived by your sister. She wrote to tell you of the king’s death and instructed us to come quickly to London with Edward, but she failed to mention that on his deathbed, your brother-in-law named Gloucester as protector.”

“What?”

“She also failed to mention the fact to Gloucester. Or even news that the king had died.”

“Oh, sweet Jesus!”

Distress marred Rivers’s features. “Gloucester must have assumed that I knew. Assumed that I was conspiring with her.”

“I’ll tell him the truth!”

“No, Nell. You mustn’t involve yourself. Firstly, they will never believe you. And if they know we are close”—Nell could see Rivers was thinking on his feet—“not only will you be in danger, but young Edward—”

“He is the king,” Nell argued. “They wouldn’t—”

“We have no idea of their intentions. We have no clue what other mischief my sister the queen is up to. That she deceived Gloucester in this way, that she has betrayed me . . . I fear that Elizabeth, in her desperation, is capable of anything.”

“What should I do, Antony?”

He put his hand through the window. She grasped it with her own.

“You did well coming here to see me. ’Twas very brave. But you must be braver still. Pretend we are both simply servants in the household of the king. Pleasant friends. Show only dismay that someone close to the king has come under suspicion of treason. Say
nothing
in my support.”

“But—”

“Not a word. When they take me away—”

“Oh Antony, no!”

“—you ride south with Gloucester and Buckingham. Stay very close to Edward. You’ll be the only trusted friend he has.”

“I shall contact Bessie the moment I reach London.” He was thinking hard. “Do that. Bessie is a clever girl. Learn as much as you can from her of the goings-on at the palace. You must write me what you know, through letters from Edward to me. Surely the king will be allowed to correspond with me, but you cannot be known to be writing me yourself.”

“What if they open Edward’s letters to you?” Rivers was silent for a long moment. Suddenly the candle flickered out and Nell could no longer see his face.

“You must devise a code.”

“A code. But, Antony, both sender and receiver must understand the code.”

“Just devise one, Nell, and I will decipher it.” They heard rustling at the bakehouse door.

“You must go,” he whispered urgently.

“I don’t want to leave you.”

“Nell—”

“Please tell me all will be well.”

He squeezed her hand and pain was palpable in his voice. “I cannot promise you that. I fear we have fallen on very evil times.