Chapter 27
‘Trust Harry’s rebellion to meet with the worst floods in the Marches in living memory!’ Miles muttered wearily to de la Bere as they stood side by side glaring at the perpetual rain. Noah would have been sympathetic; bridges broken, villages destroyed, beasts carried away and one carter swore he had seen a wooden cradle in the midst of the Severn torrent and heard the babe within it mewling piteously.
For nigh a week, Harry’s dwindling army had played at dice, consuming all Lord Ferrers’s fowls and oxen and then high-handedly demanding food from the nearby farms, their presence becoming as loathsome as the morning smell of a fox in a fowl yard. As for Harry, cut off from the other rebel leaders, and with Brecknock looted by the rabble he despised, he left Miles to deal with the complaints and, like an oppressed crustacean, withdrew into a shell of self-hatred.
‘Aye, matters could not be much worse,’ replied de la Bere.
Miles hazarded the instant the rivers were passable, the king’s supporters would send a force to take them and every man in Herefordshire and Powys, let alone their own men, would be out duke-hunting. Thank God their soldiers did not know yet that they could earn land valued at a hundred pounds or else a thousand pounds in coin as a reward for Harry’s capture.
And the surly, restless army was no place for the women. Miles longed to keep Heloise beside him, but it was wiser to lodge her with Bess and Ned at the closest religious house with a detachment of reliable soldiers camped at a discreet distance. But how long could he keep any of them safe?
It was on Tuesday, as the funeral bell of St Peter’s tolled across the stubbled cornfields, that the wind changed from south to west; God drew the clouds back like a curtain to the east and the rain ceased. Harry – whether he liked it or not – Miles decided, had to be pricked out of his downward spiral for some unpleasant decisions. He took it on himself to fetch Ned and the two women back to the farmhouse early next morning. They deserved a say in their future and there was not much time.
He returned to the farm with the child before him on Traveller to find Harry had been roused by the arrival of another fugitive from Brecknock. Sir Thomas Limerick had materialised as a tonsured cleric, complete with ass, upon their doorstep. He had escaped to the priory during the looting.
Miles listened to his report in the solar with a heavy heart. At least Morton was not in the chamber to hear the catalogue of woes. The Vaughans and the vengeful Welsh had been through Brecknock castle like an attack of dragons. They had set fire to chancery and counting rooms. The rent rolls, tally sticks, register of writs, the inquisitions and the rest were all ashes, and it would take years to re-establish the accounting, let alone justify the collection of any rent.
‘So the Welsh have won after all.’ Sir William, like a weary grandsire, set Ned down from his lap. The child, absorbing every word as Limerick told his story, was staring at his father’s lacklustre eyes while his fingers mischieved his small dagger in and out of its scabbard. Cheeks dimpled in calculation, the tiny fingers continued their play.
‘Stop that!’ snarled Harry, riled to perfection, and simple Benet shambled from behind Bess’s skirts: ‘M-must not p-play with knives, my little l-lord.’ The dagger was taken and dropped into the depths of Benet’s tawny sleeve.
‘It is all up with you, Harry, lad,’ Knyvett, resting on his age like a stick, spoke for the rest of them, ‘but the boy here is a different matter. If the House of York were to tumble, this child and Henry Tudor are all that is left of the old dynasty, and for all your hand-in-glove stuff with my Lady Margaret and that oily bishop out there, I would not trust either of ’em out beyond kissing distance.’ He stood, his mind made up. ‘Whether you will or no, I am taking Ned away as far as I may until you have resolved matters with the king.’
The duke started in protest and then, meeting the expressions of the rest, let his shoulders sink. ‘Do what you will,’ he muttered, leaning against the wall beside the fire, chewing on his knuckle.
‘There are my lands at Kynnardsley,’ offered de la Bere. ‘Your grace?’ The duke shrugged.
‘Then go with them, Dick,’ Miles exclaimed, taking charge. God knows, they could not remain here prevaricating. ‘No argument! Only you can ensure your people give them the shelter they need. Bess must go too, but it is her choice, of course. Take William ap Symon. He is a good man in danger and quick-witted.’ Meeting the younger man’s nod, he swung round on his wife.
‘My lady?’ Heloise looked up from the hearth where she was sprinkling powdered ginger into gispyns of cider. She poked pensively at a floating clove and raised her hazel eyes to Miles.
‘I will stay with you, sir,’ she replied huskily, and then reached out sadly to Ned.
Miles clenched his jaw; the sour knowledge that he now might never live to share the joy of parenthood with her made him grab for the leather map, his voice brusque: ‘Your removal must be done stealthily, Dick, for if the remainder of our force learn that his grace is sending his son away in disguise, we shall lose the rest of them.’ He unscrolled the ink-smudged vellum and frowned at the map’s shortcomings; they would be no worse off with sticks and mud.
‘What do you recommend?’ De la Bere joined him and they stood together at the casement discussing where to cross the River Lugg.
‘Tomorrow, then.’ Harry looked round at his heir as if desperate to hold him, but crippled in affection, the pucker of lip was not enough to entice the child to him.
‘No,’ asserted Sir William. ‘Tonight!’
‘So be it,’ decided de la Bere, his eyes on Bess. ‘Are you agreed, Mistress Elizabeth?’ Nodding like a seeded windblown reed, the girl’s calf-like gaze was selective.
‘I would speak privily with his grace. I pray you all give us leave.’ Miles glanced round at the others for obedience, but his smile for his wife was moist-eyed.
It took him two hours to talk sense into Harry before he finally sought out Heloise. He found her in a field beyond the over-tramped meadows, perched upon a stone wall, her hose-clad legs dangling beside a creviced harebell, and her face turned to the sun like a priestess’s. Plucked yarrow and nettles, herbs for wounds, lay by her thigh. Behind her, the hacked corn blazed defiantly golden.
He sighed deeply, knowing he might not live to see another season’s sowing. ‘This is foolish, my love,’ he muttered, leaning his forearms upon the higgledy stones. ‘I would have you stay close where I may protect you.’
‘So what is decided?’
‘Well, I have persuaded Harry to put on Benet’s well-worn homespun and go north with Ralph and Pershall.’
‘Godsakes,’ whispered Heloise, laughter a relief. ‘He could have worn that for the coronation and built a church with the savings.’
Miles smiled at the irony. ‘Aye, it took much persuasion. God grant the shabbiness will save him. Ralph has a farmstead outside Wem and they are going there. We shall put clouts on their horses’ hooves tonight and lead them forth. Maybe when the hue and cry dies down, Harry can take ship for Brittany and go to Henry Tudor.’
Heloise bit her lip. ‘And what of us?’
‘I will hold matters here for as long as I may.’
‘Hold matters!’ She gripped the wall angrily. ‘And how shall you do that, pray, when their own commander deserts them?’
‘Take that look off your face, changeling. If my Lady Huddleston or Queen Anne were in such danger, my darling, you would do the same as I.’
A huzzah reached them across the meadow from a cluster of soldiers bent over dice. ‘You are risking those poor fools’ lives as well as your own, Miles,’ she muttered. ‘Why not tell them to flee and save themselves?’
‘Of course I shall, once Harry is safely out of Herefordshire.’
‘Harry this, Harry that. I have had a surfeit of Harries. What of us, Miles? We should go to the high sheriff at Hereford and beg King Richard’s mercy.’
And what if he call it a horn, where am I then? And Heloise, what if they named her a witch? ‘Is that what you want? And supposing your wondrously perfect king says no? Lord Hastings did not have a trial.’
‘No, you and Harry saw to that.’
That insult was taken on the chin. ‘Oh my love, I do not know the answer. I am doing what I believe is right.’ He lifted her wrist to his lips. ‘Forgive me, I have brought you nothing but misfortune.’ Gentle hands drew him to her lap and he was grateful for her forgiveness. Winding his arms about her, Miles turned his face to the sun, the wool of her hose against his temple. ‘I do not want us to live in beggary in some cursed foreign land.’ Bitter tears tasted upon his lips. ‘What is Tudor to me? Lancaster, York – what does it matter, if only some king will let me live in peace with you? Christ forgive me, this is all my doing. It was I who whetted Harry’s ambition.’
‘Are you that important?’ answered Heloise. ‘Then I shall come hand in hand with you to Hell. Oh, Miles, my love, Harry’s is a mean spirit. A covetous man with self-interest as his Bible.’ Reaching out a loving hand, she caressed the dark, cropped hair, hewn for a battlehelm. ‘Where are the honours that you deserve?’
‘They would have come but for this folly. He is my friend for all his faults. I shall do this last service for him and then what God wills shall be.’ He carried her hand to his lips. ‘Come, I shall take you back to your lodging.’
Oh, let us all leave, she pleaded silently, raising her face to the boisterous clouds, disperse like the yellow leaves tumbling from the boughs. About her, the rustling beauty of the hedgerow promised peace beyond all earthly trials, but there were cruel ways a man might die and a woman also. The pain is transitory, came the comfortless answer.
Heloise blinked back her tears, proud of Miles Rushden’s nobility of nature. His courage and sense of duty were breaking her heart, but she adored him the more.
‘Oh, my love,’ she whispered as she took his hand.
*
Next morning at Buckingham’s bidding, Heloise was fetched by Martin to Woonton Devereux and bidden by Latimer to attend his grace in the solar. So the fickle duke had changed his mind. With misgivings, she entered to discover Buckingham alone, a sinister armed presence in the dim light. The casement shutters were drawn but the upper lights allowed a scrape of sun, and the duke’s engrained helm – expensive German steel, which had never seen battle – glinted blue with insect lustre. The visor was up, but he had his back to her, poring over the map.
‘Your grace?’ If annoyance had edged its way into her voice, she did not care. She had no stomach for any more niceties. It was ludicrous to curtsey.
What now? She doubted reinforcements were on their way? Rhys ap Thomas with a leek in his helm and a surfeit of apologies for not joining their force at Brecknock? Was she to be parcelled up and sent somewhere with Benet to guard her virtue while he and Miles were slaughtered fighting back to back?
‘Lady Rushden. Forgive the dim light, but I have a megrim.’ Buckingham’s voice was distorted by the high chin piece of the gorget that was one piece with the breastplate. Failure had not extinguished his mocking tone. ‘What is to be done with you?’
‘I might enlighten you after further discussion with my husband, when I can find him.’
The man pretending to be Buckingham ignored her peevishness. ‘I sent for you, madam, because Sir Miles and I have agreed that you should be escorted to the nuns at Hereford without delay.’
‘Like this? Oh yes, I am sure the nuns will take me in. Does your grace have any other good ideas, such as embracing me to your metal heart, your usual strategy when we are alone in bed together?’
That made the helm turn; her clash of gaze with her husband’s steel stare could have made sparks fly. ‘How did you know?’ Exasperation hardened his voice. ‘I thought if I can fool you …’
‘You can fool the rest out there,’ she finished for him. ‘But if Pershall is gone, will they not smell the conspiracy?’
‘Not if they have seen him in Limerick’s cleric’s disguise saddling up for Hereford.’
‘How very imagin—’ The door rattled open before she could finish and Miles abruptly swung away to lean against the chimney breast.
‘I trust I am not interrupting?’ Bishop Morton heaved his great bulk past the doorway. ‘I take it no word has come from our allies while I have been napping?’ He lowered his grossness onto a frail chest, which groaned in protest.
‘What, still here, Morton?’ sneered Miles hoarsely, imitating Buckingham. ‘I wonder you have not dissolved out of sight like salt in water.’
‘I have been tempted. I am afraid God’s hand is against you, my son, and one really must take notice of His opinion.’
Heloise glared at the fat face. Not a flicker of sympathy was there. Morton was as unmoved by the whole business as a rock beset by turbulent sea.
Miles raised a despairing hand to his eyes and half-turned. ‘Should you not say “against us”? Your God is not so clement to you either, Bishop.’
Morton gestured with philosophical acceptance. ‘What is adversity? My hide is tough, but a younger skin pricks more easily. Where is your boy, Buckingham?’
‘Where are the princes?’ retaliated Miles, with a shrug.
He had meant nothing by it, but the answer shook him – the indifferent, despicable answer: ‘Well, you should know the answer to that, my lord High Constab …’
Miles swung round violently and the bishop saw black lashes sketching eyes that had never been a Stafford blue. Morton swallowed, and would have risen but hands powerful as talons grabbed him by the neck of his cassock. ‘This is what you wanted, is it not, you traitor?’ he sneered in a low growl. ‘You and Margaret Beaufort. You have picked us off, one by one, with your sling shots.
‘Are the princes dead then? Are they? By God, if I had been Richard of Gloucester, I would have lopped you on the log that Hastings died on.’ He jabbed at the clerical windpipe with his thumbs, itching to squeeze the air out of that huge throat. ‘You lying, stinking Caiaphas, you would not have recognised our Lord even if you had met him. You would have crucified Him, and laughed.’
‘Sirs, hush!’ Latimer anxiously let himself in and leaned against the closed door. Miles, meeting the chamberlain’s warning, let the bishop subside onto the sagging wood, watching with distaste the thick-ringed hand crawling up through the furrows of flesh to rub at his throat.
Morton’s eyes, like stones, did not change. ‘Alack, Rushden, what a pity you were not born to miniver. The people might have crowned you, unlike the overreaching Harry who took my bait so easily. Let me give you some good advice, dear boy. Was it not our esteemed friend Caxton who wrote: “More is worth a good retreat than a foolish abiding”?’
‘Get your overstuffed carcass out of my sight!’ Miles snarled. ‘Curse you to Hell for the evil your foul viper’s tongue has wrought!’
‘Jealous of my influence, were you, you young hypocrite? Buckingham for king? Dear me, you are so naive in Wales. Your mediocre friend even believed me.’
‘Sir Nicholas, in the name of my “mediocre friend”, lock up this priest before I commit murder, and let no one speak with him.’
Heloise let out her breath as the door closed, her eyes glassy. ‘What did he mean?’
‘Jesu, changeling, I am trying to make sense of this too.’ For a while, Miles was silent, staring into the embers of the fire and then he cursed.
‘Tell me, Miles.’ The syllables were forced.
‘Harry told me last night that he sent the queen a warrant a week ago to take the princes from the Tower during the rising. He could do that as High Constable. It was to be proof of his change of heart. Nay, do not condemn me. I have only just found out. Cat knew, apparently.’
Heloise sank weakly onto the oaken chest, feeling as though her lifeblood had just drained out through her bootsoles. ‘Who—’ Her voice was hoarse. ‘Who carried it?’
‘Margaret’s creature, Bray, one of Morton’s many visitors.’ At her silence, he continued: ‘Harry intended the Woodvilles to rise with him to crown the boy, and then when the princes were found to be missing from the Tower, he hoped to rally all King Richard’s enemies behind him instead.’
‘Including Henry Tudor?’
‘Tudor is due to land on the Dorset coast and Harry was going to pretend to support him as the Lancastrian claimant for the crown.’
‘Pretend?’
‘Yes, hoping King Richard would annihilate Tudor. Then Harry intended to bring Richard down. I could not stop it. I advised him against it over and over – but it was all in hand before we returned to Brecknock. Believe me, I never knew about the warrant until today. Heloise!’
She was cursing Buckingham for all eternity. Had he ordered the boys’ deaths or had Margaret Beaufort used the warrant to give her agents access to murder them?
‘Good friend Harry, whose giddy head is so easily twisted by flattery,’ she spat out. ‘He has made it so easy for them. Do you not see? That evil bishop and Tudor’s poisonous mother have just pulled away the main prop of King Richard’s throne.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Oh God have mercy! Those foul rumours about King Richard wanting the princes dead. I just hope the king had the sense to send those children north while he was out of London.’ She hit her fist against her palm. ‘I hope your Harry dies like a dog in a ditch and goes to Hell. He has left you as a whipping boy, do you not see? We have no future, nothing, Miles. Oh, upon my soul, I hope King Richard can mend the damage that wicked fool has caused!’
‘It is my fault.’
‘Still singing the same old tune, sir?’ She sprang to her feet. ‘Christ’s mercy! Will you make him a gift of your guilt as well? He is not worth it, Miles. He never wa—’
The knock at the door silenced her and Miles strode to the hearth, folding his arms, his back sullen. Latimer came in and bowed, with Nandik skulking in his wake.
‘It is the necromancer, your grace.’ Obeying the twitch of Miles’s fingers, he beckoned Nandik in.
The swagger was gone. Cringing like a dog afraid of a stick, the fellow fell on his knees with a fawning whine: ‘Your grace, I crave permission to leave. I am in fear of my life from your soldiers.’
‘So you were wrong, man.’ Miles managed a whispered imitation of Harry’s voice.
‘Your grace, the weather, I—’
‘Do you imagine I went on your word, you cur?’ Miles spat out contemptuously, lifting his face to Ferrers’s greyhound badge upon the chimney breast. ‘I kept you by me because you fed me praises.’
‘A fellow must make a living where he can, my lord. I could not rise except—’
‘—except by stealth and feeding on men’s dreams.’ Miles finished for him. ‘Get you gone, you fool! You will be lucky if they do not burn you.’
Latimer started forward as Nandik flung his arms around the greaves protecting Miles’s shins, babbling: ‘My lord, return to Brecknock. Say you heard of the rising and were setting out to crush it. Your grace, it was not all lies. I swear the king must die. The planets speak the truth. Another hand may slay him, and your cause may prosper!’
‘A murrain on your cursed prophecies!’ snarled Miles, slamming his palm against the wall. ‘Go!’
‘Fool!’ Latimer grabbed Nandik by the back of the collar and forced him out.
‘What in—’ Miles’s strong hands framed Heloise’s shivering body in an instant and gathered her close. ‘Changeling?’
‘Oh, Jesu, I am sure he was speaking true, Miles. This time he was speaking true.’
*
It took courage to maintain the pretext of the duke’s presence. The second day, Miles commanded everyone to leave and the loyal remnant fled throughout the twilight, some to seek pardon, others to crawl in stealth along the ditches and hedgerows back to Brecknock. Heloise ordered Martin back to her family with letters of farewell, and by dawn, Latimer, the last strand of the spider’s web of fugitives spreading out from Woonton Devereux, was on his way. Bishop Morton had bribed his way out of the cellar the day before. Only Miles, Heloise and poor masterless Benet were left.
The priest from Weobley bravely visited them and they gave Traveller and Cloud into his care. Miles wished he might surrender Heloise and Benet to the good man’s protection, but he might as well have tried to push aside a fortress – two fortresses!
The sheriff’s men arrived at nightfall, entering the unbarred hall in astonishment to find Buckingham’s undented armour, stuffed with cushions and mouldy arras, propped in the solar, staring vacantly, and only three people slumbering fitfully by the fire. A half-dozen men-at-arms contained them in a circle of naked steel while some score looked on. With a sword tip pricking at her throat, Heloise was hauled to her feet. Simple Benet crouched, frightened and moaning, beneath a pointing blade. Miles unscabbarded his sword and proffered it, hilt first, to his captor.
A visor was tipped back and its ruddy-cheeked, sweating owner rasped. ‘I am the under-sheriff of this shire and I hereby arrest you for treason against the king’s grace. Rushden, is it?’ He consulted a list and checked the serpents on Miles’s surcote. ‘We might get forty pounds or more for you, sir.’
‘All d-deserters are pr-promised a pardon,’ Heloise protested as her hands were tied.
‘Didn’t desert, did you?’ guffawed the man who held her. ‘Didn’t come to us.’
‘A woman,’ chuckled someone, divesting her of her dagger as he tweaked her breast. ‘This traitor’s whore. Here’s sport before breakfast.’
‘This is the Lady Heloise,’ snarled Miles, with such authority that they recoiled. ‘King Richard’s ward. Lay hands on her and I promise you, he will have you hanged.’
*
They were brought finally to Dorchester, a frosty, sloping shire town that lapped a Dorset crossroads and straddled the road between Salisbury and Bridport. The east wind licked keenly around Heloise’s limbs like a master’s whip as the Hereford men drew rein at a church halfway down the hill of the High Street to ask directions.
Miles could have told them. He guessed now as they spurred down to Stinsford and rode up the Blandford Road through Yellowham Wood towards Pydeletown. Athelhampton? Aye, here was Will Martyn’s newly-built gatehouse with its oriel window but – Sweet Christ have mercy! – Miles had thought to dine here once more, not die where his family had supped as guests! Would the soldiers camping beneath the canvas against the boundary greystone walls hang him on the morrow? Tears of shame pricked at his eyes and, damn it, his hands were tied to the saddle.
Heloise, ordered to dismount outside this unfortified manor house, did not mean to be defiant. They needed to haul her from the saddle and stand her up like a wooden doll, for her ankles, frozen from the long, cold ride, lacked grist to hold her and treacherously twisted, dropping her like limp sackcloth.
‘Help her, you whoresons!’ roared Miles, struggling to free his bonds from the saddle pommel so he might dismount. ‘Have you no pity!’ A handful of dirt hit his cheek and then the soldiers and a scrabble of children were pelting him like a murderer. Miles answered in a snarl of local brogue that Heloise could not understand.
‘Jesu, not more mouths to feed,’ muttered a Dorset voice. ‘Who comes now? By the saints! Rushden?’ A gentleman in a Yorkist sunnes-and-roses collar stepped down into the muddy courtyard, his eyebrows arched in horror at Miles’s dishevelled state.
‘In with her!’ ordered the High Sheriff before Heloise could hear more. Poleaxes prodded obedience. She limped through an arched portal into a warm world that was tawny with candlelight and redolent with the male scents of ambergris, musk and horse. Behind a linenfold screen, she caught the luscious smells of roasting meats and her empty belly pleaded. Everywhere, men’s faces stared at her. Dazed, she could only blink at the jewelled hats and chains of office as her captor rasped out his purpose, and then, like a miniature Holy Land sea, the throng stepped back, leaving her exposed.
Ahead, to the right of an oriel window whose glassy crests tossed bands of vermillion across his hands, a man sat alone upon a cushioned chair of estate beside the hearth – the new king. Cord-du-roi secretaries bent before him on stools, hunched over their writing boards. The hall hushed, the only sound the scratching on parchment as they finished their sentences and set the empty quills back in the inkpots. Richard III looked round and his face froze in the world-weary expression of a man who had thought he could trust people. Then slowly his icy mien thawed as he recognised his wife’s maid of honour beneath the riding cloak, improper in her broadcloth cote and muddy hose.
‘Heloise,’ he said with compassion, his gaze rising from her bound wrists to the shameful magpie hair.
Silently cursing her lack of grace, she hobbled forward to where the sheriff crouched before the king and fell willingly to her knees. ‘Sovereign lord,’ she answered huskily.
‘Unbind her,’ the king ordered, but someone said, ‘Search her sleeves first.’
Loosened from the cruel leather, her hands felt jabbed by a hundred evil needles as the blood oozed back like unclogged rivulets. Dear God, why had they not brought Miles in? Jesu! Hastings had been given little time before they killed him!
‘Your highness,’ she pleaded, ‘have mercy on my husband.’ She searched his face, willing him to forgive. ‘He wrote the words that made you king.’
‘And another traitor spoke them,’ answered King Richard. ‘Is Rushden here?’
The sheriff rose. There was a rattle of harness near the door and her bound husband was hauled into the king’s view. She longed to run across and necklace her arms about his neck with love and pride, but she might serve Miles best by a quiet dignity. His gaze searched her out and bestowed upon her such love as she had never dreamed of.
‘The traitor, Sir Miles Rushden, your highness.’
Traitor? Here was no haughty, defiant rebel, but a man who knew his own worth and owned up to error. Yet there was not one iota of forgiveness among the king’s men. They were staring with animosity at a prisoner who looked more Welsh than English: his black hair wildly tousled, the unfashionable growth of beard limning his jaw, the dribbles of mud spattering his surcote and the rearing perfidious serpents. Miles was not given a chance to make any reverence, but flung to his knees.
Desperate at the king’s feet, Heloise beseeched humbly, passionately, God’s mercy, as she felt the hatred intensify and insinuate itself amongst the White Boar men, like an ugly wraith. Her prayers, pagan and holy, searched desperately for someone to listen.
‘Hang draw and quarter the cur, sire!’ It was Sir Thomas Stanley, married to the treacherous Margaret Beaufort, rattling his loyalty – saliva and brandished fist an insult to the air.
‘Make an example of him.’ The lethal proposal came from Lord Lovell and the room became a Tower of Babel as each man brandished his loyalty. Heloise, willing King Richard to forgive her lord, felt the cold November air from the open door. She turned her head and the babble ceased. With a creak of studded leather, Sir Richard Huddleston, like a player, strode into the heart of the hall and paused, absorbing the triangle of players before the king, his glance ironic before he made obeisance to his royal brother-in-law. Help us, Heloise implored him silently.
‘And have you anything to say, Sir Richard?’ Curiosity softened the king’s face.
‘It would surprise you if I had not, my gracious lord. Do you need my unworthy opinion? A great deal of mud seems to have been cast already.’ Huddleston’s mocking glance examined Miles but then, as if he could not stop himself, his gaze was drawn to Heloise as she huddled at King Richard’s feet. Surprise slid across his features.
You owe me for Dionysia’s life, her eyes and mind told him. So does your king! You must save Miles! In God’s name, you must!
Silent and stern now, Huddleston strode across to King Richard and moving behind the royal chair, stooped. As he spoke quietly to the king, the white enamel brooch on his beaked hat reflected the light. A horse? No, a unicorn! Margery’s brooch had been a unicorn!
It meant something, something she must do! Heloise strained to hear what he said while her mind stumbled through this deadly twilight to find the answer. Upon a tapestry among mille fleurs, another little unicorn gleamed snow and golden in the fading light. The faeries were with her; the answer was close within her grasp.
‘Let him be tried straightway!’ Stanley, like a plump gospel saint behind the king’s other shoulder, seized the hall’s silence, determined to herd their opinions into a verdict. ‘What say you, Rushden? We can hang you in the corn market in Dorchester, your entrails drawn out and your body quartered and sent to the four corners of the realm as a warning to all traitors. Shall we invite your old father to watch?
‘Cat got your tongue, then?’ he gibed the prisoner. ‘Answer us!’
‘A trial is not needful, Stanley. Yes, I am guilty.’ Miles’s voice was steady as a rock despite the waves of hate breaking upon him. ‘I did what I believed was right, and I am answerable for it, but loyaulté me lie.’ It was perilous to cast a king’s personal motto back at him. The furrows in King Richard’s brow deepened at the ambiguity.
Stanley jerked forward. ‘Obedience to the king transcends fealty to rebels.’ He angrily seized a fistful of the captive’s hair, forcing his face up, and Heloise felt the stab of Miles’s pain. ‘You stink with treason, Rushden!’
‘Holy Paul! Let others speak!’ His liege lord reined him in with calm authority, but the earl let go with such violence that Miles almost fell forward on the hearth. ‘Rushden,’ declared the king, ‘you are fortunate that someone has already testified on your behalf.’ Mutters of disbelief fidgeted the listeners but King Richard held up his hand to silence them. ‘We have been informed that the prisoner did everything to dissuade the traitor Harry Stafford from his evil path.’
‘Jesu forbid we should pardon such a villain!’ protested Lovell. ‘Am I going deaf, sire? He has just admitted his guilt! Let him be hanged!’
King Richard’s gaze searched the crowded room. ‘Will you still speak for him?’
Heloise, frantically seeking a merciful face, gasped as de la Bere pushed forward from the back. The embarrassed reddening of his skin went ill with its blond roofing, and with a swift, shameful glance at Miles, he bowed. ‘Yes, sire, I still attest to his worth.’
Someone else growled. Miles had flinched as though a cruel hand had lashed him, and de la Bere’s face flushed darker. The young man clenched his jaw, declaring, ‘On his return to Brecknock in September, Rushden never ceased to warn Buckingham against this course. But the duke’s mind was set.’
De la Bere – the informer who had sent the warning to the king? Dick de la Bere? Heloise’s mind was reeling. Surely not? The honest charm, the boyish chivalry and all the time … Oh, dear God, it was Dick who had taken charge of Ned and … and they had blithely sent the child and the others with him – with him into a trap! Heloise stared appalled, the solid earth shaking beneath her feet. Was Sir William taken too? And where was Ned?
She felt the shame of being duped flooding through Miles. If his fists had been free, he looked as though he would have struck the younger man in pain and bitter fury. Curses were on his tongue. Do not speak, willed Heloise, Dick is making amends and trying to save you. To prevent him answering, she blurted out:
‘L-Lord Stafford? What ha—’
‘He is with Mistress Bess. Quite safe, my lady.’ And was Bess corrupted too? Had the entire household been wormed through with treachery?
‘But the traitor still drew sword against you, sire.’ The High Sheriff of Herefordshire spoke in self-interest, thinking of the glory and forty pounds.
‘And the woman is a necromancer. Buckingham surrounded himself with them.’
Heloise started, shocked. Incredibly it was Piers Harrington who spoke, the esquire she had spurned at Middleham.
‘No!’ exclaimed Miles hoarsely. ‘Hang me if you must, but acquit my lady.’
‘Acquit?’ Harrington snarled derisively. ‘I suppose God turned her hair grey.’
The High Sheriff nodded. ‘We have a witness who will testify she has familiars.’
‘Who?’ snarled Miles.
‘The man Benet.’
‘But he is a simpleton,’ exclaimed de la Bere, and Miles, meeting Heloise’s panicked face, was turning ashen.
‘With no reason to lie, then!’ Lord Stanley bawled.
‘Stop, please!’ exclaimed Heloise, beseeching King Richard: ‘My gracious lord, if they must have a sacrifice, let it be me. God knows I have lived with fear and suspicion all my life.’
‘Dear me, my liege’ said Huddleston clearly, at the king’s elbow, ‘this eagerness for block and faggots prates of a wondrous love between these two.’
‘Then burn the pair of them,’ snorted someone.
‘May I speak, sire?’ Heloise raised her palms in supplication. ‘I can prove my lord’s innocence.’
‘Then do so, Lady Rushden.’ The regal eyes were insistent.
‘Sir,’ she turned to Huddleston. ‘My husband wears the unicorn.’ She heard a hiss of breath from him and met his gaze resolutely. ‘Upon his shirt against his heart.’
Stanley was nearest. He gleefully yanked a fistful of shirt up from beneath Miles’s breastplate. ‘By the lord, he does, see! So what of it?’
The air seethed between the king and his closest friends. Unprivileged, Stanley looked from one to the other, but it was the king who understood: ‘Sir Richard Huddleston?’
Heloise turned the full force of her mental anguish on Huddleston, but knew his strong mind scarcely acknowledged it. The surprise had been controlled swiftly. All of the king’s men were gazing at the knight banneret and he in turn was studying Miles.
‘You mean I have to decide for you, my lords?’ He unfolded his arms.
‘I think you should.’ Heloise’s voice was husky, her syllables weighting her husband’s life and knowing as well as he did that the power of life lay within his gift. ‘But let me make it easier for you. Draw your dagger, sir.’
Mouth taut but green eyes curious, Huddleston slid his dagger free. ‘And?’
‘I pray you cut away the serpents, sir.’
He tossed the haft into his other hand and approached Miles. De la Bere held out a hand to assist, but it was the guards, at a nod from Huddleston, who thrust their prisoner up on his feet. For a long breath, the two men stared at one another. Then Huddleston grabbed the neck of the surcote taunt, pricked the dagger into the argent silken membrane and drew it down.
‘No, deeper,’ Heloise commanded, and Miles, dazed, rallied and understood. Gratitude shone like glass, and love, intense and selfless, knelt at her feet.
Beneath the silk and its buckram interlining, murrey glinted. As though he were skinning a wild beast, Huddleston sliced the outer layers away. A cloth-of-silver boar, with feathery fetlocks and delicately curved tusks, glared out from beneath its ragged covering. The room gasped in unison. Stony interest serifed King Richard’s mouth. It was his badge.
Please! Heloise cried silently to Huddleston. I love the man. Give him back to me. Can you not see the courage in him? He stayed true till the last.
The silver and emerald gazes, male and unfathomable, levelled, locked and held. Heloise’s heart raced, frantic, close to despair. Did Huddleston have the intelligence to see Miles caught upon a tide greater than he had the power to hold? Was there any mercy or imagination behind the agile mind? Time dragged its feet before Huddleston spoke at last: ‘I believe, sire, that you should grant this man a pardon.’
‘Believe? Or know?’ questioned King Richard chillingly, and stood, making his own examination of the planes and chiselling of the prisoner’s face.
‘Believe, sire. I pray that will suffice. How can any of us know what truths may lie within another being’s soul?’
As if the room drew breath again and every man with it, they waited for the King of England to disagree. Richard Plantagenet’s head was bowed as though a heavy, twisted cord had been wound by some cruel torturer around his temples. When he finally raised his face, the betrayal by his greatest ally was visible in the bleakness of his gaze. Defiance, however, tilted the strong jaw. Bitter words sliced through the hushed air like an axe.
‘That most untrue creature is dead. Let that suffice!’
Buckingham dead! Heloise felt the bleak, despairing scream of Miles’s soul. Dark lashes briefly curtained her husband’s hurt before he tilted his face to his merciful judge. ‘God forgive him. His greatest enemy was himself.’
King Richard looked upon the redeeming unicorn badge, and lifted sad, knowing eyes to Miles’s face. ‘Shall you indeed mourn him? I fear me no one else will.’
*
‘You are fortunate to escape with a fine,’ exclaimed Huddleston, entering the bedchamber at the Antelope in Dorchester just as Miles finished cleansing himself. The banneret snapped his fingers to his manservant to carry away the soiled napkins and the ewer. ‘What is it you need to know, Rushden? Can you not bury the dead? After that performance of wifely devotion, Heloise deserves a husband, not a mourner-in-chief.’
‘I want to close the door and bolt it,’ Miles muttered, rubbing a thin grub of ointment into a smarting wrist, and waited.
‘Hearsay.’ Huddleston shrugged and handed him the clean shirt on loan from Athelhampton’s owner.
‘I should like to hear also.’ Heloise, bathed and warm in a borrowed gown of blue fustian, slid off the bed to stand behind Miles, her hands like a priest’s stole scarfing his collarbone.
‘A fellow named Ralph Bannastre betrayed your duke.’
Words, his playthings, failed Miles now. He swallowed, head flung back; his fingers slid across Heloise’s.
‘Mytton, High Sheriff of Shrewsbury, arrested Buckingham in the orchard of Bannastre’s farm at Wem, and brought him down to the king at Salisbury to be tried. He willingly confessed and provided the names of all the conspirators – except you, Rushden. He would not name you.’
Miles turned within his lady’s arms and gathered her to him for comfort, his tears spilling down upon his collar.
‘And King Richard spoke with him?’ Heloise asked softly, cradling her lord’s cheek against her own.
‘No. The king was gracious enough to grant him an audience but our guards found a dagger in Buckingham’s sleeve.’
‘What!’ Miles jerked his head round in disbelief.
‘God have mercy!’ Heloise exclaimed, gripping his arm. ‘Miles, Ned’s dagger! Remember? Benet took it and put it in his sleeve and then the duke disguised himself in Benet’s clothes.’
He closed his eyes painfully, his hand finding and locking with hers.
‘I doubt it would have made much difference,’ said Huddleston sympathetically. ‘He was beheaded next day on the Feast of All Souls.’
Miles tried not to think of the axe, of Harry’s life blood bursting out. ‘And … Ralph received his thirty pieces of silver?’ Bitterness timbred his voice.
‘The king permitted the wretch one of Buckingham’s holdings in Kent and right unwillingly too. The man was an utter Judas.’ Huddleston’s tone was scathing. ‘Loyalty is a precious commodity.’
‘Yes, it is,’ Looking upon his lady, Miles stroked his knuckles tenderly down her cheek. ‘Wait, Huddleston.’ Sir Richard had reached the door. ‘Which manor in Kent was given to Bannastre?’
‘Yalding. Is that significant?’ And not waiting for an answer, he left them alone.
Heloise slid onto Miles’s lap as the door closed. ‘Is it significant?’
‘Not any more,’ he sighed wryly. You stubborn fool, Harry, if only you had given Ralph Yalding.
‘Miles?’
‘Oh, Heloise, it will not be easy to throw a handful of earth on Harry’s memory and just walk away.’ But it must be done. ‘Changeling,’ he whispered, settling her head against his shoulder and bestowing a kiss upon the tip of her nose, ‘it was because of you that I was pardoned.’
‘Nonsense,’ she murmured, snuggling against him. ‘King Richard and Huddleston recognised your courage to do what your conscience told you was right. I fear me that if Buckingham had stood in the king’s shoes today, he would not have pardoned you.’
‘No.’ His cheek stroked against her silver hair, thankful her bright soul had become his anchor. ‘God forgive me,’ he whispered, shielding his eyes as if the deity could see his shame. ‘I am guilty of such arrogance, Heloise, believing I could mould Harry’s soul into greatness. Such a waste. He could have helped make Richard’s reign a golden age.’ But kind hands soothed his brow and peeled away his fingers. ‘Oh dear Christ, I hope Knyvett and Latimer will trust to the king’s mercy too.’
‘I am sure they will be forgiven, and you, in turn, must forgive de la Bere. He did what he believed was right and he protected Ned. Duty and honour are hard masters to serve.’
She let the silence heal, and, entwined, they sat staring into the flames, the only sound in the chamber the crackling of the logs.
At length she stirred, leaning back so she might see the glow of candlelight upon his face. ‘Miles, I-I had a dream last night, but I do not know what it signifies.’
‘Tell me, cariad.’ His acceptance warmed her more than the fire’s heat.
‘I was standing in Brecknock market looking up at St Mary’s, but it was quite different. There was a tower upon it. And someone I knew stood beside me. He had the look of Buckingham, and yet it was not he. Now why should I dream that?’
‘I do not know, love.’ It was comforting, nevertheless. He carried her fingers to his lips. ‘Thank you for all your understanding, Heloise. It took great courage and trust to stand by me these last weeks.’
‘Courage, no? You said to me once, remember, that I was happier hiding behind a mask. Well, that is over now. I am not afraid any more. Seeing you standing there facing death so bravely gave me strength, Miles, strength to believe in myself.’
In husbandly fashion, he tidied a lock of her damp hair back so he might see her face. ‘It was always there in you, Heloise.’
Their foreheads touched.
‘Oh, a murrain on this,’ she protested, laughter kindling within her. ‘I shall build a monument to you if you build one to me.’
‘You can have two, changeling.’
Hazel eyes chastised him and then they grew more mischievous. ‘Shall I tell you a secret? De la Bere is going to marry Bess. Shall I tell you another secret, y Cysgod? There is still a place in this fickle world for an honest friend like you. Light a candle for Harry’s soul and then turn to the sunlight.’ Her arms clasped him firmly. ‘Will you walk hand in hand with me into the future?’
‘Yes, cariad.’ His arms enfolded her. ‘With all my heart!’