‘Bessy,’ I sighed, ‘come down to earth, dear. The King is your uncle. He can’t marry you. Not without one hell of a dispensation, anyway. What would he gain if he did? Parliament has declared you a bastard. You’ve no inheritance and no dowry. He’s already suspected of poisoning the Queen to make way for you, and if he was idiot enough to take you as his wife he’d confirm those suspicions and alienate all his northern supporters, who love Anne Neville because she’s the Kingmaker’s daughter. The only possible advantage he’d gain by marrying you would be to deny you to that clown Henry Tudor, but he can just as easily achieve that end by giving you to someone else.’
She stood up, tears forming in her beautiful eyes. ‘You’re forgetting one thing,’ she sniffed. ‘I love Richard. And Richard loves me. We shall be married. And when I become Queen, my first business will be to banish you from the Court.’
You will scarcely credit this, but the fool went straight from me to Richard, and declared her love. The subsequent explosion was heard in Ipswich and Reading.
This was why Bessy was tacked on to the Portuguese proposal, and why she and Cecily were sent off to live at Sheriff Hutton. Despite this the lying rumours continued to spread around the Court, and around London, until Richard was forced to make a public statement to the effect that he had not murdered his wife and that he had no intention of marrying Elizabeth of York. However, to this very day, there are still people who are sufficiently stupid to believe the contrary.
12
Now that Anne was dead I no longer had any official position at Court, but Francis Lovell was short of staff and had urgent need of my assistance on the Intelligence side, and I was required to stay on to help with the collation of the numerous reports we had coming in from our people in France. It was clear now that Tudor intended to invade us during the summer. We even had an indication that his intended point of landing would be Milford, near Southampton, and Lovell and my brother John, Lord Audley, Treasurer of England, were sent to those parts to organise the naval defences and put the local punters into a state of readiness.
Richard’s followers were put on alert. Jocky Howard and his son were ready to mobilise the men of East Anglia at a moment’s notice, and Northumberland was under instruction to hold the North in readiness. For Lancashire and Cheshire we had to rely on slippery Stanley and his younger brother, Sir William, neither of whom I would have trusted beyond the end of my darning needle. I reckoned that the best we could hope for was that they’d stand by as neutrals, which was their usual form, and the reports we had in from the few reliable agents in those parts tended to confirm me in that view.
Roger was quite looking forward to the battle. He’d ordered a new set of armour for the occasion, and was itching to try it out. He came clanking into our solar at Horton Beauchamp.
‘You’re getting a bit old for this sort of thing,’ I reminded him. ‘I don’t want you taking any silly chances. Leave the heroism to the younglings they deserve their career opportunities. Stay with the King, in the command position, where you’ll be safe.’
He swung his war-hammer in an experimental arc, and smashed the top off a jug of wine we had standing on the dresser.
‘Sorry about that,’ he said, sheepishly. His voice was muffled by the closed sallet he was wearing on his head.
‘How many times have I asked you not swing your battle-axe in the house?’ I cried. ‘You’ll be setting up a quintain on my bed next!’
He opened the visor. ‘It’s not a battle-axe, it’s a war-hammer,’ he pointed out, as if that made any difference.
‘Have you any idea how many herbs I have to mix together to get red wine out of the carpet? Let me get you out of this pile of scrap.’
Every young damosel should be taught how to arm a man, and how to take the harness off again. After all, it’d be jolly inconvenient if you were trapped in a cave with your knight, with a fierce dragon outside, and you didn’t know how to fit your protector into his armour. He can’t do it all himself, he has to have either a esquire or a lady to help, and in my experience there’s never an esquire around when you really need one. It’s no use calling on some old peasant who happens to be passing. He won’t have been trained for the work, and you’ve no more right to expect him to do your job than he has to expect you to do his.
You never appreciate how many separate pieces make up a man’s war harness until it’s all spread out over your solar floor.
‘That was pretty quick,’ said Roger approvingly, watching the sands still running through the quarter-hour glass. ‘Must have been pretty close to your personal best.’
‘Not bad,’ I agreed, ‘bearing in mind that I’m out of practice.’
‘This will probably be the last battle of our lifetime,’ he predicted. ‘Once Tudor’s dead, there’ll be no one left to give Richard hassle, and England will be at peace. That’s why I have to be there.’
‘There’ll be other battles,’ I told him. ‘Richard has the French next on his list, and they know it. That’s why Anne de Beaujeu is supporting Tudor.’
‘Strange crowd, the French,’ he muttered. ‘Fancy having a woman as Regent! Whatever next!’
‘She’s very shrewd,’ I pointed out, ‘and that’s one of the things that worries me. Remember that she’s old King Lewis’s daughter, and he was the cleverest bastard in Europe. He’d not have left his country in her care without being certain that she could cut mustard.’
‘Are you trying to tell me that this Tudor fellow is a serious threat?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I do know that my father died because he underestimated the enemy, and I don’t want you to follow suit.’
‘It should be a fairly straightforward piece of fighting,’ he opined. ‘Not nearly as bad as Barnet or Tewkesbury, and absolutely nothing on Towton. Now, that was a battle! Fought in a snow storm so thick you could scarcely see the end of your arm. We walked the horses over Lancastrian corpses all the way to York, and finished with a really first-class round of executions.’
‘Roger,’ I said, patiently, ‘I do wish that you would stop being nostalgic for the good old days. All I can remember is that you were almost killed at Tewkesbury, and that some of us had to spend six months mopping the sweat from your brow and carrying you to the garderobe. I want you to keep your eyes open for treachery, and don’t be afraid to run away if the day is lost. I’ll not think any the less of you.’
‘I don’t like all this defeatist talk, Alianore,’ he snapped, frowning. ‘Have you had a premonition or something? I thought you had more sense than to go scrying for the future in candle flames.’
I felt a cold dribble of sweat run down my belly. I hadn’t touched a Tarot card in years, or looked for shapes in the smoke, but I was uncomfortable about the battle that was to come, as if someone was constantly whispering a warning in my ear.
‘There’s going to be treachery,’ I said. ‘I can feel it.’
‘The Stanleys?’
‘Yes.’
He snorted. ‘Don’t worry. Richard will have come up with a few surprises for those sods.’ His eyes fixed on me, and ran up and down, an idea forming in his head. He strolled across to the window and opened the casement, then shouted for Guy, who was supervising the archery practice in the courtyard. (You can’t leave the young men to it these days, or they just go off to play football or drink cider. I don’t know what the world is coming to.)
‘Yes, Sir Roger?’ Guy called back.
‘Any sign of a messenger from the King?’
‘No, Sir Roger.’
‘Sure?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘If one does happen to arrive, keep him quiet for half an hour, will you?’