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When the key turned, unlike the previous night, loneliness was not in my mind – and neither was regret. I was not afraid. I had chosen this course of action, fate had shown me what overwhelming feelings passion could release and it was somehow not in my nature to deny them. I had no thought for yesterday or tomorrow, only for the moment and what that moment might achieve. I was young and my senses were whirling almost out of control, except that, behind the powerful mutual attraction that had drawn me to the beautiful John and the joy I ardently desired to find in his arms, there was also a deep determination not to be used, either by him or by my own family. There was no doubt that my actions that night served my own needs as much as his but I was not to know that he would read them very differently. He was older and more idealistic and his feelings ran truer and deeper. I could not have asked for a more gentle and ardent lover to show me the delights of mutual passion. How could he have known that when he offered his love so sweetly, he chose the wrong woman?
Myrtle did indeed make a wild and fragrant bed. After we had spent our passion John slept deeply and soundlessly but I lay awake, my mind in turmoil. I had barely noticed the pain of defloration and had subsequently wondered, after the thrilling throes of climax, what there was about it that the Church revered so highly and the virgin martyrs died for. My body ached from the unaccustomed activity of love-making but I nevertheless yearned to stay beside my lover, to feel again the pleasure of his caresses and the joy and fulfilment of union.
Nevertheless I forced myself to rise, softly and soundlessly, from the bed and reach for the dirty shift and kirtle that I had discarded before supper. The borrowed gown from which John had hurriedly unlaced me lay on the floor among the jumble of his doublet and hose and I almost stumbled over them as I searched for my riding boots. Carrying them I turned the key cautiously in the lock, holding my breath as it scrunched over the cogs and wheels, but I heard no stirring from the bed. As I had hoped, the outer chamber was empty and the door to the stairway open. I paused at the foot of the stair to slide my feet into my boots and thread the laces. I could hear rats scuttling about in the straw and I could not face crossing the byre barefoot. The horses snuffled and shifted on their feet, dozing like the guard propped up on a sheaf of straw against the wall. Everything now depended on what I found when I opened the heavy oaken gates; if the yett had been lowered, escape from the tower would be impossible.
8 (#ulink_4cb7f801-9b6c-5041-8bb4-716a9d23fcbd)
To Aycliffe Tower
Cuthbert
In the trees behind Brancepeth church the ground dropped away into the same deep, narrow dene on which the castle stood. Feeling my way in the dappled moonlight, I led my horse to the edge where I found a useful thicket of bushes to tie him to while I ventured hand over foot down the steep side, clinging to roots and saplings. Within minutes I reached secure footing on a sloping gravel path dug into the dene wall. I climbed, guessing it would lead to the sally gate of the castle mentioned by my drinking companion. Where the ground levelled out, sure enough, I caught sight of the moon’s glare reflected off a high expanse of the castle curtain, and at its base, flush with the stone wall, a small archway, defended by an overhead turret and sealed by a studded wooden door, just large enough to allow a mounted man to pass through.
Keeping within the shadow of the bushes, I turned and retraced my steps, for the path ended at the castle. The archway had been newly built, the door thick. Following the beck downstream towards the River Wear, I deduced that it would provide a discreet and direct route to the Bishop of Durham’s hunting lodge at Auckland, on the edge of Spennymoor: this had lately been developed into a military fortification, with a large bailey to accommodate troops mustering for the defence of the Scottish marches. The bishop had appointed Sir John Neville as its constable, but I asked myself if Sir John would have taken Cicely to such a busy place.
As a young squire in my father’s retinue, on the last of his annual tours of his northern manors, I remember hearing of a particularly poor and remote peel tower a few miles south of Auckland which struggled to wrest five pounds in annual revenue from woefully undernourished villeins. I wracked my brains for the name of the manor. The only thing I could remember of any relevance was that when the old earl’s will was revealed, Hal Neville had remarked that ‘the peel in the bog’ was one manor he was more than happy for the new earl to keep. Instinct told me that this might be where Cicely had been taken and, after all, it was my instincts that Lady Joan had encouraged me to employ in her daughter’s aid.
I collected my horse and followed the beck as far as the River Wear while the moon rose high in the sky, its bright light flooding over uneven moorland covered with large areas of gorse and dead bracken. Fast-moving shadows cast by scudding clouds did not hamper my progress south. I carefully avoided the small hamlets and fortified farms on the route, because on such moonlit nights lookouts would be posted for reivers, and I did not want to be sighted and apprehended as one of their ilk. But most of the country between Brancepeth and Richmond, thirty miles to the south, was Neville territory, and familiar to me; its manors were now distributed piecemeal between the two branches of the family. Lady Joan had, on occasion, detailed me to represent her in settling the feuds and disputes between tenants arising from this complicated division of property. So although I could not remember the name of the peel in the bog, I did have a rough idea of where it was located.
When I eventually spotted the tower, poking up like a lone tooth from a fetid maw of flat, moss-covered marsh, I faced the problem of approaching it without either being seen or swallowed in its mire. There was something truly ghastly about the way the moonlight glinted off the surrounding expanse of innocent-looking moss and reeds, concealing the lurking presence of a bottomless bog beneath; when I tried to urge him on, my horse snorted and danced on the spot, flatly refusing to take one step onto such unstable ground.
Common sense told me there had to be a safe path or else how did its inhabitants reach the tower? For nearly an hour I rode around the edge of the morass, trusting my horse’s instinct not to venture onto dangerous terrain, but I could find no evidence of a marked route. I contemplated leaving my horse and trying to navigate the bog on foot but as the moon dropped in the heavens I realized I would be taking a foolish and possibly fatal risk, particularly in the dark. There was no option but to wait until sunrise.
As a squire I had spent months with the marcher scouts, a troop of hard-bitten, border-reared fighting men recruited for their intimate knowledge of the wild lands between Scotland and England and their ability to move secretly through them on their dale-trotter ponies. They could survive for weeks patrolling their section of the march, living off the land and avoiding human contact whilst observing all movement of men and animals without detection. I admired their skills and I would now apply all I had learned of them. I hobbled my horse in an overgrown spinney. My stomach made sharp protest at its lack of nourishment but I silenced it with a long swig from the wineskin slung from my saddle, rolled myself in my campaign blanket and lay down to gather what sleep I could in the undergrowth.
The unmistakable sound of a hue and cry roused me a couple of hours later. Shouting, the long wail of a hunting horn and the answering sounding of hounds ripped through the veil of sleep and jerked me to my feet, sleeve dagger at the ready. Dawn had mottled the eastern sky in shades of red, pink and grey and my horse’s head was up, ears pricked. I crept to the edge of the spinney for a cautious search but could see no movement from the section of bog within my view. Nevertheless the sinister sounding of horn and hounds and the shouts of men in pursuit were loud to my left. I decided that being mounted would give me an advantage in a tight situation, and better visibility. In a matter of moments I had tacked up my horse and was heading out of the spinney.
The reason for all the noise quickly became evident: a mud-streaked figure was struggling at the edge of the bog, only yards from firm ground but caught thigh deep in wet mud and unable to reach safety. It was Cicely, almost unrecognizable, covered in mud, exhausted and clearly terrified, her face twisted into a desperate snarl as she rocked herself to free one foot or the other from the clinging ooze. The hue and cry was close by, any moment it would be here and what I assumed was a break for freedom would be brought to an end, or, more terribly, she would fall flat into the watery mud and disappear beneath its surface.
‘Do not move!’ I shouted, spurring my horse forward and galloping as near to her as the horse would go. ‘It is me, Cuthbert. I will get you out. Wait.’
I jumped from the saddle, commanded my horse to stand and ripped my blanket from the restraint of its buckling.
‘Oh, Cuddy, thank God it is you!’ Cicely’s eyes were enormous with fright in her mud-daubed face. ‘Quick! The dogs are coming.’
‘Yes, Cis, I can hear them.’ Turning briefly, I caught sight of a man on the path pushing sticks into the ground as a companion behind him hauled on the taut leashes of two scent-hounds in full voice. I took aim and threw out the blanket. ‘Here, catch this.’
One corner landed near her hand and she grabbed it like a drowning sailor might grab a life-line. ‘Do not let go, Cis! Lie down, I’m going to pull you out,’ I said urgently.
The Cicely I knew might have quibbled at falling face down in a bog but luckily she wasted no time in clutching two sides of the blanket in a white-knuckled grip and throwing herself horizontal, face down in the soggy blanket. Immediately there was less suction drag on the cloth and I managed to haul her swiftly towards me until I could hold her hands and heave her, drenched and panting, onto the firm ground.
I could see she was about to speak and I growled at her. ‘Save your breath, Cis. I have a horse and we will ride away from this first.’
Although her weight was nothing to arms honed by years of sword-play and archery, her soaked skirts hampered my stride so that I stumbled rather than ran towards my stoical horse who fortunately obeyed orders and stood firm, even as I threw Cicely face down over his withers and leaped up behind her. ‘Hang on for your life. I’ll stop as soon as I can,’ I yelled and dug in my spurs.
He exploded away just as the first pursuers stepped onto firm ground and began racing towards us, scent-hounds baying with excitement. Cicely’s right hand closed on my leg like a vice as our hectic pace threatened to hurl her from the horse’s neck. I am not certain we would have made it but instinctively the courser threw up his head, tossing her back towards me so that I could wrap one hand in the cloth of her skirt, while the other handled the reins. She must have been winded and in pain but she made no sound and we galloped away as if fleeing from a battlefield, the important difference being that we were victorious. The only glance I managed to make behind me showed a dozen mud-spattered men spilling from the bog-path yelling in frustration. One was noticeable for his red tunic emblazoned with a white saltire cross and his shock of fair hair. The tall figure of Sir John Neville was familiar to me from sharing duties with him on the Scottish march. White-faced and wide-eyed, he looked like a man in shock.
9 (#ulink_2cbe81eb-fb86-58b3-91d3-6df6d2d76bac)
The Raby Bath House
Cicely
Cuddy rode away from that accursed bog as if the hounds of hell were at his heels while I pitched and bumped over his horse’s neck, offering desperate but silent prayers to the Queen of Heaven. I had no breath even to murmur an Ave, every thud of the horse’s hooves seemed to force out what little air I managed to drag into my lungs and every so often I had somehow to raise my head for a life-giving gulp. Fortunately, just as I had started to fear I could hold on no longer, the pace began slowing and we came to a halt. When I fell to the ground my legs would not support me and I crumpled in a muddy, sodden heap under the horse’s feet, a safe landing place because he could not move another step. His head hung down and his sides heaved. We were both gasping like stranded fish.
It was several minutes before I found the strength to sit up. By then Cuddy had dismounted and satisfied himself that there was no sound of pursuit before pulling me out from under the horse and unhitching his wineskin from the saddle-bow. He put it to my lips and I spluttered as the sharp liquid hit my throat.
‘How did … you know … where …?’ I croaked, unable to go on.
Cuddy knew what I meant. ‘Intuition. Instinct. Second sense. Your mother sent me on a wild goose chase and look – I found the goose.’ He grinned. ‘After all, I am your champion.’
I gave a weak smile and wheezed, ‘My champion …’ My voice cracked and failed once more.
He bowed. He did not seem breathless in the least. ‘Glad to be of service. But you take the laurel wreath, Cis. How in God’s name did you manage to break out of the tower?’
That was when reality hit me. Vivid memories came flooding back. I bit my lip to stop the tears and stifle the words threatening to spill off my tongue. I knew then that they would all ask the same question. How had I managed to get away from my captors? It was a question I decided there and then that I would not answer. Let them wonder. Except for Cuddy they had done nothing to help me. I did not owe an explanation. But had it not been for Cuddy, everything I had done to enable my escape would have been for nothing. I might as well have died.
I shook my head and decided it was easier to speak in short bursts. ‘Not difficult. Bog was the problem. Frightening. Then I heard the horn. Tried to hurry. Fatal step – if not for you. Thank you, Cuddy.’
Gradually I felt strength returning to my legs. ‘There is one more thing you can do for me, if you will,’ I said, taking another gulp from the wineskin and handing it back. ‘After you have helped me up, that is.’
I held out my hand and Cuddy pulled me gently to my feet. I swayed and staggered and he steadied me, regarding me appraisingly, his gaze travelling from my sodden skirts to my dripping locks. I had not found my hat in the dark and I daresay my cheeks were streaked, for I had not managed to hold back all my tears. ‘I think I know what that one thing is,’ he said.
‘More intuition?’ This time my smile was rueful.
‘You do not want to return to Raby looking like a camp follower who has been caught in a thunderstorm.’
I nodded. ‘Exactly.’ For the first time I glanced around me, taking stock of our surroundings. We were in a small clearing among mature trees. It could have been almost any wood in England. ‘Where are we?’
‘Houghton Forest. About ten miles from Raby. It will take us an hour to get there once the horse is rested. There is a stream over yonder. You could wash off some of the mud while we wait. When we get to Raby you can hide somewhere safe and I will fetch Hilda. She will know what to bring to restore you to your customary splendour.’
He was teasing, his eyes twinkling, trying to lighten my mood, and I appreciated his restraint in not pressing me on my escape. Cuddy may have been conceived in a barn but his manners were castle-bred. ‘And Hilda knows how to hold her tongue,’ I said with a nod of approval. ‘But where would I be safe?’
‘There is an old bath house on a lake in the woods south of the castle. You can barricade yourself in there while I fetch Hilda. No one goes near it now but they say our father used to entertain there in days gone by.’ Cuddy gave me a look, which told me not to enquire about who the old earl had invited to a bath house in the woods or what the entertainment had been. Of course there were plenty of rumours, but in deference to my mother nobody ever talked about other ‘by-blows’ her husband might have sired on pretty girls around the various Neville territories. No others had joined the household. For some reason, in our father’s eyes, Cuthbert of Middleham had been special. Perhaps Cuddy himself did not know why.
The bath house was no woodland shack. It was a domed, stone-built grotto perched on the side of a glassy mere which reflected a stand of magnificent trees that must have been planted when our great-grandfather enclosed the Raby hunting park a hundred years earlier. Although the trees were still leafless, waiting for spring to spread its canopy of green, the castle itself was not visible, but I knew it was not far away because in order to reach the place unseen we had skirted the village of Staindrop and entered the park like poachers, avoiding all well-used tracks. Staindrop stood only a mile from Raby; my father lay in its glorious collegiate church, under a marble tomb, beside his first wife. Cuthbert forced his way into the bath house through a wooden door, not locked or barred but swollen from winter damp, and left me with the wineskin, telling me he would be back within an hour.
The bath house consisted of a single chamber. Stripped of any of the luxury or comforts it might once have contained, cobwebs festooned its walls, all hung about with insect carapaces; droppings of various small animals littered the floor and the curved steps that led up to the parapet of the round stone bath and, at the bottom of the bath, the remains of a deserted nest covered what I guessed must have been a drain for emptying the water into the lake. Outside, on the bank of the mere, I found a firepit where a cauldron would have been slung over the flames. My imagination conjured up a vivid image of servants fetching steaming bucket-loads from the cauldron, because surely nothing would have cooled the ardour of the ‘bathers’ more than icy water straight from the lake.
I could not wait in the bath house. It was full of echoes, the ribald shouts of men and the lusty laughter of women, the splash of water on naked flesh, and I did not like it. My father had always been my image of the perfect knight, lord and sire. In recent days that gleaming icon had become tarnished by the stories I had heard and the truths I had learned.
The silence and stillness of the mere drew me. I guarded against discovery by taking up a position a few yards from the bath house, hidden by the branches of a holly tree growing close to the edge of the lake. There I sat on a convenient log and I studied my reflection in the glassy surface of the lake. What I saw absorbed and disturbed me. It was not that my hair was tangled in Medusa-like curls and my face was still mud-streaked, despite my efforts to wash it: I was not the same person who had set out blithely from Raby with her falcon three days before. Then I had been thoughtless and carefree, a young girl on the brink of marriage but who had given little thought to what that marriage might mean. My life had been ordered for me and while I had occasionally rebelled against the restrictions placed on me, I had not seriously questioned my own feelings or considered my own future. I had scarcely known I had any of my own feelings. Now there was a new look in the wide blue eyes that stared back at me and a more determined set to the curved mouth which did not smile. There were secrets behind those eyes; thoughts and words which those lips had spoken but would never speak again. The child who had gone out hunting had come back an adult.
10 (#ulink_2ca324e4-b6d0-5815-9ab8-f4c9bc3b216e)
Raby Castle
Cicely
‘Sweet Mother of God, he brings a whole army! Does he intend to wed or make war?’
It was Will who spoke. I stood between him and Ned on the battlements of Clifford’s Tower, the tallest at Raby, staring out through a crenel at the long procession snaking down from the Auckland road towards the castle gatehouse, the far end of which was not yet visible. Richard, Duke of York, was arriving at last and he rode at the head of an enormous retinue and baggage train.
‘Does he think he is the king?’ Ned cried. ‘There must be three hundred retainers. Can we feed so many?’
‘We will have to hunt more game, brother. That should be no hardship.’
‘I am not sure the park contains enough deer.’
Viewing my betrothed’s enormous train, I felt a mixture of awe and bewilderment. ‘Why does he need such a vast retinue?’ I asked. ‘Has there been unrest in the realm?’
Will laughed. ‘It is not a case of need, Cis. Richard is declaring to the world “I am the Duke of York. See how many follow me. Behold my wealth and power.” Brother Hal will be a little disconcerted. His Salisbury retinue numbers only two hundred.’ Ned turned and headed for the tower stair, adding, ‘He will be at the gatehouse soon and we are detailed to escort him in.’
They were both gone. It was Maundy Thursday. Tomorrow the whole castle would plunge into the solemn fasting and ritual of the Unveiling of the Cross before bursting into full celebration of the Resurrection on Easter Day with joyous feasting and minstrelsy. Two days after that would be my wedding to this rich and powerful new duke – the grandest nuptials ever to be celebrated within the walls of Raby castle. I lingered a little longer, mesmerized by the spectacle of the cavalcade approaching ever closer.
A trumpet blast sounded a fanfare of welcome. Next, Westmorland Herald recited the list of honours and titles in a high, penetrating voice that carried all around the outer bailey – ‘Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, Earl of Cambridge, Earl of March, Earl of Ulster, Baron Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore and Lord of Clare’ – and my future husband. He rode in full armour and trappings, an upright, broad-shouldered man. Behind him rode his escort of retained barons and knights, all proudly in formation displaying the blue and murrey-red livery of York. White rose pennants fluttered at their lance-tips, fixed between their own individual pennants and the scarlet, gold and blue of the royal leopards and lilies, to which Richard was entitled as a royal prince and direct descendent of King Edward the Third. Behind each of three barons and twelve knight-captains, rode their troops of squires and men-at-arms and behind them the household officials, couriers, clerks and house-carls, huntsmen and falconers with their hounds and hawks and a procession of wagons containing clothing, furnishings, provender and presents.
Anyone would have marvelled at what I saw, but I was remembering the under-age lordling who had set out from Raby seven years previously to take service in the king’s household. I could scarcely believe my eyes. Then he had been a scrawny lad of fourteen, spotty and insecure, an orphan who had fought hard to establish himself among the numerous squabbling henchmen and progeny of his Neville guardians. Now he was twenty-one, the wealthiest magnate in the kingdom, who carried his head so high it seemed to add inches to his stature. Immediately behind him rode a squire bearing his crested helmet and richly emblazoned shield. No wonder Ned had compared him to a king.
By the time the principal members of the procession had passed through the gatehouse, I had descended from the keep to the inner ward where my mother and brothers were already gathered to greet the new arrival. The clatter of hooves on the flagstones of the long Neville tunnel-gateway, built by my father to secure the castle’s inner core, gave us warning of the duke’s approach and, to the muttered reproof and intense relief of my mother, I slid into place beside her just in time. As the king’s aunt, she was the only one who outranked Richard and as soon as he had swung down from his horse he strode up to bend his knee to her, a deference which gave me a chance to assess this bridegroom of mine before he scrutinized me. Seven years at court, three of them in France; how greatly altered was the boy to whom I had been betrothed at the age of nine.
Close to I saw that he was good-looking without being naturally handsome. His complexion was fair, his cheeks smooth-shaven and his hair, the colour of dark honey, was thick, curly and shining. Expert grooming, good posture and extreme fitness had given him a chiselled profile and the gleaming and costly silk of the crested jupon he wore over his armour was embellished with bold and intricate embroidery depicting the royal arms quartered with those of his Mortimer mother and his Castilian grandmother. My first impression was of an ambitious man who sought perfection in everything. I wondered if he would find it in me. The only feature that softened this image was that luxurious mane of burnished hair in which, suddenly and to my guilty surprise, my fingers itched to bury themselves.
Before I could banish this sinful thought to the dark recesses of my mind, my betrothed was moving to greet me, his eyes fastening so intently on mine that I felt sure he must be able to read it through their window. Consequently, to my chagrin, I blushed.
‘My lady Cicely, my duchess,’ he murmured and he squeezed my hand gently as he lifted it to his lips. His attitude was so charming and assured that I could find no similarity with the awkward, gawky youth who had slipped the betrothal ring on my finger and I quashed any comparison with Sir John Neville of Brancepeth. He was no longer to exist for me. The man who kissed my hand was my destiny, the future that was mapped out for me. Since my return to Raby I had prayed fervently for the strength and grace to embrace that future and fulfil the role expected of me. I lifted my head and felt the blush recede. To my relief I could see admiration in the flecked green eyes which studied me so intently.
My mother had insisted on an intimate talk with me on the day following my return. She had banished all family, companions and servants from her salon and settled us both in cushioned chairs near the hearth. I had expected this and after a much-needed bath, a hot meal and a good night’s sleep, I felt confident that I could handle my mother’s inevitable probing about my time as a hostage. I managed to avoid lying to her by concentrating on the fraught circumstances of my escape and Cuthbert’s rescue and avoiding too much mention of my companions at Aycliffe Peel. Fortunately she was more interested in my encounters with Lord and Lady Westmorland, exclaiming indignantly over Lady Elizabeth’s unkindness and Lord Ralph’s unreasonable demands. I think she was so relieved that I had returned in time for Richard’s imminent arrival and by so doing also avoided the necessity of her having to make any concessions over property that she neglected to ask any direct questions about Sir John Neville.
On the night of Richard’s arrival, it being Maundy Thursday, there was a discreet and private meal in the Great Chamber behind the Baron’s Hall, attended only by family members, visiting clergy and the principal York retainers. Only one course was served, consisting of fewer than twenty meatless dishes and accompanied by light Anjou wines and Spanish sack. When a single subtlety was paraded towards the end of the repast, Richard was delighted to recognize a gilded marchpane model of his own personal emblem, a falcon perched on a fetterlock, a special type of padlock used to secure valuable horses against theft.
‘I compliment your cooks, my lady,’ the duke said to his hostess. ‘I only registered my personal badge with the Royal Heralds quite recently. I am surprised anyone so far north knew of it.’
My mother frowned. ‘We are not completely out of touch at Raby, my lord duke, and my cooks have plans to conjure even more imaginative ways of celebrating your marriage feast on Tuesday, which I believe is also your saint’s day.’
‘Yes, the feast of Richard of Chichester – a truly English saint. I shall look forward to those. But Raby has already conjured me a wondrous bride. What more could I ask?’
This gallant response had me blushing again, despite my desire to appear mature and controlled, and my mother made no secret of her delight at her future son-in-law’s honeyed words. The frown disappeared and her sapphire eyes sparkled. Richard’s time at court had certainly taught him how to charm the ladies and I could see that my brother Hal, not usually easily pleased, was more than a little impressed by the urbane and sophisticated nobleman that had developed from the diffident young squire who had left Raby soon after our father’s death. By contrast I was beginning to feel gauche and insecure, not a sensation I enjoyed.
This sense of inadequacy was compounded by Hal’s remarks to me later as we said goodnight. ‘You will have a great responsibility as Duchess of York, Cicely. Richard gives every sign of becoming a force in the land and not only thanks to his birth. He is a man of fierce ambition which will need tempering and a good wife should be the one to put a curb on his pride. Otherwise what now appears to be admirable intent could end up looking like arrogance and he will make enemies. Your role will need great patience and subtlety. I hope you have these qualities.’
I frowned, surprised by his sensitivity. ‘I thought that all a great lord wants from his wife is sons, Hal. And that is in God’s hands surely.’
He shook his head. ‘You are wrong. Believe me, my wife Alice has brought far more than three sons to our marriage. She has become my most valued confidante and adviser. Only she knows the true workings of my mind and gives me her sincere view of its direction. You can be of similar value to Richard if you cause him to respect your opinions.’ He gave me one of his rare smiles. ‘And a few sons would not go amiss as well, of course.’
I gazed at him with innocent enquiry. ‘And I suppose the earldom of Salisbury which Alice brought you has nothing to do with the regard you have for her?’
Hal looked affronted. ‘The earldom was not a foregone conclusion, Cis. We married just after Alice’s father had re-married and it was assumed that his young second wife would bring him the son and heir he needed. Who could know he would be killed in action before this hope was realized? My wish is that Richard will find you as loyal and chaste a wife as Alice has been to me,’ he said. ‘I am sure he will expect no less.’
That set me back on my heels. Being only too grateful for my escape from my abductors, Hal had refrained from asking me how I had managed to achieve it and I wondered if this rather pompous delivery only days before my wedding contained a veiled warning that what I may have chosen not to vouchsafe to him should never be revealed to anyone, especially not to my bridegroom. I wished him a thoughtful good night.
During the long Passiontide vigil on the following day my prayers before the veiled crucifix in the castle chapel were intense and fervent. When, at the climax of the litany, I watched the priests lower the purple shroud to reveal once more the figure of the crucified Christ, I wanted to be the first to rush forward and kiss the Cross but I waited patiently for my mother to lead the way and wondered, as I took my turn, if there truly was redemption in the twisted and emaciated body we so reverently acknowledged. If there was not, then surely I was damned.
11 (#ulink_20e49e96-ab06-5b92-b04b-7b87e9da4aa1)
Raby Castle
Cicely
During the quiet, contemplative afternoon before Sunday’s Feast of the Resurrection, Richard came to my mother’s salon. I was sitting with Hilda, a little apart from the other ladies, pretending to embroider a chemise while we whispered girlishly together about what we would wear for the Easter celebrations, our first opportunity for dressing up since the Shrove Tuesday feast before the start of Lent. Despite the barrage of curious female glances, Richard entered the room with no sign of awkwardness. In fact he appeared the embodiment of self-assurance, attired in neat, sober apparel appropriate to the holy day but nevertheless displaying subtle touches of sartorial style. His deep-red Cordovan leather shoes were not excessively pointed but the laces were tipped with gold, anyone with an eye for style could tell that the rich chestnut fur trimming on his grey doublet was not mere lordly minerva but ducal sable and the brooch in his black draped hat contained a darkly-glowing garnet the size of a hen’s egg, set all around with moonstones. I felt suddenly lacking in ornament in my rather demure if fashionable blue woollen houppelande, chosen in deference to the season, and wished that I had worn a more elaborate gown.
After greeting Richard warmly, my mother immediately apologized and declared that she was needed in the castle chancery to discuss arrangements for the wedding festivities, while her ladies were due to attend a dance class. ‘We intend to make merry at your wedding,’ she assured him, ‘so I have commissioned a master from London to teach us the latest dance-steps. Cicely and I will be having our lesson later. For the present, I will leave you two together. Hilda will stay but she will not listen or interrupt. I am sure you and Cicely have much to talk about.’
I cringed at her lack of subtlety and rather gushing tone, but Hilda gave me a little wink and squeezed my hand before collecting up her needlework and slipping across the solar to a distant corner where a brazier had been set to ward off the chill so far from the fire. As Richard approached me I stood up, smiling a greeting and dropping into a slow curtsy. I daresay I should have modestly lowered my eyes but instead I kept my chin raised, re-affirming our childhood relationship which had always been candid and lively. ‘I did not expect to see you before dinner, my lord,’ I said. ‘You must have a thousand matters to attend to with so great a train about you. I hope they are all adequately housed and fed?’
He bent down, took my hand and raised me to my feet. Our eyes met, green on blue. We were of almost equal height now but for a time as children I had stood taller than him, a situation which I had relished but which I knew had riled him. There was no sign of irritation in his eyes now though; rather he looked captivated by what he saw and I thanked St Cicelia that I had chosen to bundle my mass of russet hair into fine gold filigree netting on a pearl and gold fillet. If my simple blue gown lacked sophistication, at least my headdress supplied some evidence of elegance.
His response to my enquiry held a hint of amusement. ‘My people have no complaints about the Raby hospitality, thank you, but I did not seek your company to discuss their wellbeing, Cicely. We have much more important things to talk about now that we are at last alone.’ His glance swivelled to where Hilda sat, eyes cast down on her embroidery, and his smile widened. ‘Well, almost alone.’
‘Perhaps you remember Hilda?’ I made a gesture in her direction. ‘She has been with me since childhood. She is my closest friend and privy to all my secrets.’
He took my hand and led me to the window where my mother often sat to read. The salon was on the second floor of the eponymous tower my father had built especially for his second wife, with windows that looked over the curtain wall and the wide moat to afford a panoramic view of the surrounding countryside. The stone seat of this oriel was comfortably cushioned in bright-blue figured damask and within its deep embrasure we would be out of Hilda’s line of sight.
‘I hope that will not be quite so true after we are married. I believe that man and wife should hold certain matters secret between themselves,’ he said, seating me gallantly before settling down himself at a carefully judged distance. This was my first indication that with Richard everything was carefully judged, that is until he lost his temper, but I was not to discover this important variation just yet.
‘You were young when I left Raby but I remember your skill at horsemanship,’ Richard added unexpectedly. ‘Even at ten years old you would slip away to the stables to tack up your pony and ride out. Cuthbert was invariably with you, of course, but your fusspot of a governess would come scurrying around the outbuildings looking for you. It made us henchmen laugh.’
I shrugged. ‘I tried not to stay within call. I suppose I was an unruly little girl.’
‘Yes, you were.’ Richard shifted about to make himself comfortable on the soft cushions. Afternoon sun shining through the leaded panes bathed us in soft, golden light. ‘But I admired you even then,’ he added – as an afterthought, it seemed.
‘Admired me?’ I echoed. ‘I thought you considered me silly and annoying.’ I had a sudden recall of a particularly disdainful look when I was in trouble following one of my illicit rides.
‘No, I never thought you silly. Annoying perhaps but mostly because you were so confident you would be forgiven whatever you did. And of course you always were.’
I gave a little laugh. Had he known what I was thinking? But what he said was true. I said, ‘I was spoiled; an occupational hazard of being the youngest child in a large family.’
‘I envied you that privilege.’ Richard leaned forward, suddenly earnest. Once again he took my hand in his, clasping it gently. His palm was callused from wielding his sword and I could feel the scratch of the raised skin against mine. ‘I should like us to have a large family, Cicely.’
I felt myself blushing again and berated my lack of self-control. ‘We must be content with whatever God sends I suppose,’ I murmured. I stared down at our joined hands and had a sudden image of how our bodies would be joined after our marriage. It would be so soon after John – but perhaps that was just as well. A shiver ran down my spine but Richard seemed not to notice.
‘I am the last of a line,’ he was saying. ‘The House of York needs sons. I intend to make the white rose flourish and there will be much to pass on to the next generation. Still, as you say, it is in the hands of God.’
He was fiddling with the betrothal ring on my middle finger. ‘I remember when you put that ring on my finger,’ I said. ‘You did not look as if you admired me then. You are greatly changed from the boy that was my father’s ward.’
‘I hardly knew you. You were only eight or nine and I did not want to be betrothed to anyone. But on the contrary, Cicely, it is you who are most changed. You have become beautiful.’
His use of the word unnerved me. Emotion and memories rose like a tide and I could feel the same frisson running up my arm as I had when John had used it, only a few days ago. Was I so gullible, so vulnerable to flattery? I snatched my hand away but managed to hide the action as if assailed by a sudden sneeze, pulling my kerchief from my sleeve pocket.
