LATE FEBRUARY 1483, BRECKNOCK, WALES

Harry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, rose from his carved chair, dismissing his council with an impatient gesture. His chamberlain, Latimer, gathered up his notes noisily and departed, his disapproval stated in the briefness of his bow. The other councillors followed almost at a tiptoe, like husbands back from a carousal. All except Sir Miles Rushden, who closed the door behind them and swung around, his gaze questioning Harry’s decision.

‘I do not give a cuss if you disapprove, Miles. You are not going to make me change my mind this time,’ the duke exclaimed, thrusting open the shutters of the lower window and tapping an amethyst-decked thumb upon the sill. Below the castle, the town of Brecknock shivered against the winter gusts. Beyond, the hills rose from the vale like a long, green wave and dark tumbling breakers of land heaved up into the shrouded mountains. Rough, raw, the January wind from Pen-y-Fan’s steep ridge rushed into the room, frightening the papers on the table.

Miles shifted a river-smoothed pebble across to anchor the dispatches and wrapped his fur-edged cote more closely across his breast.

‘It is but a small matter to give Ralph the vacant stewardship at Yalding, your grace,’ he argued, leaning across to take a handful of sweet chestnuts from the pewter salver. He judiciously kept to one side of the hearth, nicking each nut with his dagger before he pokered them into the embers.

‘No,’ muttered the duke, glaring resentfully at the distant fog-shrouded beacons. He looked over his shoulder and scowled. ‘Jesu! Ralph will never make Yalding pay.’

‘Surely he deserves the chance to prove himself?’ Not that Miles had a great respect for this particular servant of Harry’s, but Ralph’s wife, Eleanor, had proved efficient and steadfast.

‘They have Lacon farm at Wem. Let that suffice, Miles. I will hear no more of the matter.’ The duke struck his fist against the wall. ‘By the saints, I have had enow of being cooped up here. I need to hunt. Tomorrow! Arrange it!’

Miles inclined his head obediently. He too felt the lack of exercise after a week of rain but for him it never evoked the black despondency that plagued Harry Stafford.

‘I daresay it is time the realm had another rebellion, your grace,’ he remarked dryly. ‘Shall I arrange that too? Although there is the possibility you might end arse-up in a butt of malmsey.’ For treason, like the king’s jealous brother, George, Duke of Clarence, five years before.

The duke’s ill humour fell from him like a loosened mantle and he pulled the window casement half to and turned. ‘Whoreson!’ he exclaimed affectionately. ‘Some wine, if you please.’

His friend complied with a lazy grin. Miles was a fine judge of when to let matters rest. The southern Welsh had given him the name of Y Cysgod – the duke’s shadow – but his strength lay in keeping a pace ahead. He knew the Scorpio in Harry Stafford’s nature; it was a matter of keeping to the front of the man.

‘By the by,’ the duke exclaimed, ‘you still have not told me what your father wrote concerning your betrothal with Lady Myfannwy?’

Miles frowned as he passed across a cup of muscadelle. He was willing to marry Rhys ap Thomas’s ward as part of Harry’s political manoeuvring for alliances in Wales, but at twenty-seven he did not feel the match was any longer his father’s business, nor was he contemplating this second marriage with particular enthusiasm. His girlwife, Sioned, and their child lay buried in the cold ground these two years since. Besides, his mirror showed how the world saw him, and a pitted face would not please a young bride.

‘My father gives his blessing, and thanks your grace for your care of my fortunes. The other news is that my younger brother has a son. Thank Heaven! Perhaps now my parents will give up parading neighbouring maidens every time I return home.’ One of the chestnuts shot across the hearth like a cannon ball and Miles coaxed the rest out.

‘I shall suggest Rhys bring Myfannwy here in April.’ Harry juggled a hot chestnut from palm to palm. ‘A tasty little piece, she is.’

And she would bring him considerable lands, Miles conceded. As the heir of a family that had fought for the House of Lancaster against the victorious Yorkists, he needed to improve his fortunes, and the alliance with Rhys would be advantageous. He pensively divested a chestnut of its shell; so be it, in April he would take Myfannwy to his bed.

‘What is this doing in here?’ With thumb and forefinger as though he held a rat’s tail, Harry plucked a tapestried cushion from the settle and swung it with distaste. The Woodville cockleshells, the arms of his wife’s detestable family, sprawled across its puffed-up innards. Since King Edward IV had become so infatuated with Elizabeth Woodville that he had married her, the Woodvilles had crept into all the nooks and crannies of power. Marrying an heiress here, an heir there, they had stretched their tentacles across the entire kingdom. Even Wales, where Harry should by rights have had great lordship, was not free from their interference. Nor was the duke’s marital bed free either, although Catherine Woodville, the queen’s youngest sister, avoided it as much as Harry did.

Estimating distances, Harry dropped the cushion in line with the window, and kicked it at the casement. It hit the wall instead and fell with a soft plop onto the oaken chest. He shrugged.

‘So, what have you in mind to waste the day? Shall we send a bailiff down to Tretower to annoy the Vaughans? Or I could tell my wife I want another son.’

Friendship was all very well – Miles ran a hand wearily through black hair that might have passed for a Welshman’s – but sometimes he felt centuries older than Harry, rather than two years younger. He raised his brow at the pinioned parchments hopefully, but the duke shook his head.

‘There is that sloe-eyed treasure that Pershall found for you over at Llantrynach, my lord.’ Retrieving the cushion, he replaced it before the ducal foot. ‘Marged? Lives in the lane behind St Brynach’s?’ He glanced up and recognised the kindling of interest. ‘Shall I have Pershall fetch her over?’ At least the girl was eager.

‘Yes, why not?’ muttered his grace. ‘And I pray God she will be amusing.’ He thumbed his heraldic emblem, the Stafford knot, upon the goblet. ‘The seed head of a dent-de-lion has more wit than the last one I bedded.’

‘And your grace has not forgotten that I leave on Monday.’

‘My grace has not forgotten, no. But can you not delay? It will be so tiresome without you.’

Miles cursed; his leave time was precious. It might take a week to reach Somerset with the roads so miry. ‘But, my lord, I thought we agreed that I should meet with you at Thornbury.’ Yes, he should be able to help his father take possession of Bramley from that interloper, Sir Dudley Ballaster, and then skirt Bristol and make speed to Thornbury.

‘Oh yes … well, I suppose you must go.’ The remark was tepid; the following silence deliberate. Harry’s confidence was seesawing again. ‘I wish I might rip Thornbury apart and build anew. A pox on the king! If only he would grant me the rest of my Bohun inheritance, I would have the funds.’

Yes, fifty manors-worth, that had fallen into the crown’s holding. They had ploughed this ground so many times before, groaned Miles inwardly, as he perched himself on the edge of the table, but he prepared to listen with his usual patience. If only Harry had not fallen out with the queen, high offices might have come their way and they would both be busy at court, instead of peeling chestnuts in this god-forsaken apology for a castle. Mayhap the opportunity would come one day with God’s good grace, but meantime he would not be sorry to have a brief respite from Brecknock and its bored master.

And now, because Harry’s dark moods had to be endured else the entire household would feel the brunt, Miles patiently leaned his chin upon his ringed hand and waited. It was a small satisfaction that the duke’s confidences lent him power. But he had no wish to abuse Harry’s friendship, nor was he himself easily manipulated to exploit it. There were just a few in the household who could understand the bitterness that, from time to time, rose up in the duke like a poisoned, flooded well. The Duke of Buckingham’s hatred of Elizabeth Woodville was like a constant open sore. The rift with the queen had begun when Harry, at ten years old, had openly declared his boyish fury at being made to wed not just a girl, but worse – the queen’s eight-year-old sister. The queen and her brothers had never forgiven him.

‘I have more royal blood in my little finger than the plaguey Woodvilles can muster in the whole of their ancestry,’ grumbled his grace, ‘but I will wager Lord Rivers and the queen’s other brothers were invited to Westminster to keep Christmas with the king.’

Miles refilled the duke’s goblet. ‘No, your grace. Lord Rivers kept Christmas with the Prince of Wales at Ludlow.’

Harry looked sulky at the reminder. Establishing the twelve-year-old heir to the throne at Ludlow with the queen’s eldest brother, Lord Rivers, as tutor, had been calculated to keep not only the Welsh to heel, but his grace of Buckingham too. For King Edward, having deposed the House of Lancaster and established the Yorkist dynasty, was fearful that if ever his enemies gathered strength again, they would seek out Harry for their rallying point. Harry was a Plantagenet and the last legitimate heir of Lancaster, which was why Miles was safeguarding him. All of Miles’s future lay in the value of Harry’s birthright and one day, God willing, if ever there was a division in the House of York, Miles would exploit it to the full.

‘Oh, Christ, Miles, mayhap you should go and join my cousin of Gloucester’s retinue at Middleham. It might bring you more fortune than rotting here in cursed Brecknock.’

‘What and break tradition? The Rushdens have always served the Staffords.’ Some day, Miles vowed, he would repair the Rushden fortunes. One day the wheel of destiny would shift again and he would help Harry topple the Yorkist–Woodville alliance. ‘Be of comfort, my lord, it will not always be thus. The queen may die before new year – in childbed.’ It was spoken softly, lest passing servants pass the treason on, like a contagion.

‘Pah, and I can travel to the moon,’ muttered the Duke of Buckingham, and he kicked the embroidered Woodville arms right out of the window.

There seemed to be a minor battle going on, observed Miles, reining his horse, Traveller, to a halt on a rise two weeks later, and staring in fascination at the full-blooded anarchy that was taking place in the snow down the road. He did not know this part of Somerset.

‘That Bramley village, eh?’ muttered Dobbe, his manservant, unimpressed. They had passed a castle of rather modest proportions about a quarter of a mile back. Because it had been decorated with a sickening superfluity of scarlet and azure pennons, they knew they had reached their destination, a demesne still usurped by Sir Dudley Ballaster.

The March wind was biting and Miles edged his horse into the shelter of a laneway to their left. His servant and the two men-at-arms he had brought for escort followed.

‘Do you think someone has forgotten to tell them that we have had peace in England for the past twelve years?’ he muttered and sprang to the snowy ground, thrusting back his fur-lined hood and rubbing leather-clad fingers over his darkening chin. He had been looking forward to a shave and a bath, not a skirmish. It was irksome to be summoned to Bramley by his father when he had intended spending the rest of his leave at the family home further south in Dorset.

One of his companions chortled. ‘Well, this is Somerset, ain’t it, sir? I am a Hereford man, m’self.’

So this was Bramley, formerly his great uncle’s little kingdom. The village looked prosperous enough; its church was steepled, the snow-dappled roof in good repair, and the gardens of the thatched dwellings, which fringed the king’s highway, were fenced and planted. The alehouse’s summer garland was withered and frosted, but its doors and windows, broad and candlelit in the afternoon gloom, beckoned him like a friendly whore, for it had been a tedious, cold journey.

‘Just like Wales. We might ha’ saved ourselves the journey.’ Dobbe mopped his dripping nose with his cuff as he gauged the fighting on the road ahead. The thwack of quarterstaves on shins, and the grunts as fists met jaws, carried clearly in the cold, still air. The knot of villagers, watching from a sensible distance, added rude yells to the battle cries. ‘You goin’ down there, sir? Show ’em how ’tis properly done?’

His master frowned, slowly making sense of the scene. Jesu mercy, it was his worthy father down there bellowing at a little man with a thatched roof head – or was it the huge, armoured fellow he was roaring at? ‘Well, well,’ he muttered appreciatively.

Feuds still happened in parts of England. Some were local squabbles that had begun during the lawless years of King Henry VI; others were disputes over land ownership, exacerbated by the wars between the great families of York and Lancaster when lands had been confiscated for treason and dealt out to loyalists by the victors. Miles knew exactly what the skirmish was about but he had hoped his father would have settled the quarrel by now. He had already glimpsed the bone of the dogfight: Bramley castle – a square Norman tower and renovated hall boasting scarlet shutters and two chimneys, an encircling wall, a moat with a mill race hard by, a further scatter of dwellings and a dozen adjacent fields complete with last year’s scarecrows. The cosy little fortification had been bought with ransom money earned bloodily by his great uncle during the French wars of the 1440s and passed down to his second cousin, who had died pickled and heirless, bequeathing Bramley not to his heir, Lord Phillip Rushden, Miles’s noble sire, but to a friend, Sir Dudley Ballaster. Presumably it was Ballaster who sported the unpleasant haircut and was now shouting retaliatory abuse at Miles’s father.

Perhaps it was time to make his presence known. With a lopsided smile at his parent’s rumbustious behaviour, Miles gave Traveller’s neck a rewarding pat and slid once more into the saddle.

‘Looks like ’tis over for the day, sir.’

In a matter of minutes it was. A score of the combatants were noisily making their way towards the alehouse, but Sir Dudley Ballaster had swung himself onto his horse and, with several henchman and two hounds in his wake, was thundering up the road and passed Miles’s party without a second glance at the hooded travellers hunched against the wind.

‘Friendly, ain’t they?’ muttered Dobbe.

His father’s contingent was dealing with several bloodied noses, each dripping impressively onto the much abused snow, but it was hard to tell, from Miles’s distant position, what other damage had been done.

Miles swung round on his men-at-arms. ‘When Dobbe and I are out of sight, go to the alehouse. Pretend you are but travellers. See what you can find out.’ He kneed his horse to a gallop down the road. ‘Not pitchforks, my lord?’ he exclaimed in loud disdain as he drew rein. ‘How very primitive.’

‘What the—’ His father strode heavily forward, scarlet-visaged and fists raised, the sable serpents on his breast heaving mightily. ‘By Our Lady! Miles!’ he wheezed in astonished delight as his son dismounted. ‘I was not expecting you until morning.’

‘It seems I should have brought my full armour, my lord. I had thought to find Bramley already in your hands.’

‘Ha, we almost had ’em, my young hawk.’ The older man’s embrace was still vigorous but he seemed more stooped than when they had parted last summer. The dark, once-lustrous hair was liberally flecked with silver and, though the strength was still there in the aquiline nose and determined mouth, the older man’s chin was dewlapped from feasting too richly. More disturbing was the laboured breathing that betided weakening health.

‘Did you note Ballaster?’ Lord Rushden sniffed, and glared disgustedly up the street. ‘Rode past you. Strutting little cock! Carpet knight!’ He spat, and added in the hushed growl he always used when criticising the House of York, ‘Got his tap on the shoulder for supplying old King Ned with arms and a loan during Warwick’s rebellion back in ’71. Godsakes, Ballaster’s father was a crossbow merchant in Bristol.’

‘And does Ballaster play the shopkeeper?’

His father sneezed. ‘Aye, when he is not playing at being a nobleman. ’Pon my soul, lad, you should have seen this swaggering varmint sticking his chest out like a pigeon and proclaiming: “Ooohh, he had supped with the king and my lord Hastings”. Should be a law against wretches with no breeding acquiring land. Next thing we shall have ploughmen representing the shire in Parliament.’ He sniffed again, rubbing at his moustache with his forefinger. ‘Mark my words, we shall have a hard time getting Bramley from this dog’s arse. Tie us up in the courts for years, if we let him. You might have a word with Buckingham, Miles. See if Duke Harry can do anything to resolve matters in our favour.’

‘I suppose the place is worth it,’ muttered Miles, anticipating a pile of lawyers’ bills. His family’s fortified manor house was much more to his taste, and he wished he were there now instead of standing on an icy sward in cursed Bramley. His father already had two castles and both needed repairs. Why did he want this one? Miles glanced towards the retainers his father had led up from Dorset. Most of them were stamping and blowing on their fingers to keep the blood flowing. Miles was not feeling warm either, and his father sneezed again, a hand to his throat as if it irked him. ‘So where do we honourably retreat to, my lord?’

‘Retreat? Watch your language, lad. I seized one of the outlying manors yesterday. Gives us a base at any rate. I daresay you are hungry.’ Lord Rushden whistled for his esquire to bring his horse. ‘I think I am coming down with an ague, lad. My throat’s as rough as a carpenter’s file.’

‘And when is the next battle?’ Miles asked with tolerant affection. ‘Cockcrow?’

‘Ten, tomorrow, but a small matter. Yon fool has challenged me to combat. Whether he thinks it will settle matters, God knows. I reckon that whoreson wouldn’t know a charger from a packhorse.’

‘Combat?’ Miles’s dark eyebrows rose, his amusement vanishing. His father might have earned his knighthood at the second battle of St Albans, but that was twenty-two years back. ‘You are surely not going to fight the fellow?’

‘No, of course not,’ exclaimed his father, flinging an arm about his shoulders. ‘Now that you are here, you are.’