The Sunne in Splendour Read online

They rode in silence for a time. Richard had understood more than Edmund realized, knew that Ned had somehow done something that would much displease their father.

  “Where is he, Edmund?” he asked, sounding so forlorn that Edmund ruffled his hair in a careless gesture of consolation.

  “Looking for you, where else? He sent your Joan back to the castle for help when dark came and they still couldn’t find you. We’ve had half the household scouring the woods for you since dusk.”

  Silence fell between them again. When Richard was beginning to recognize landmarks, knew they would soon be in sight of Ludford Bridge, he heard Edmund say thoughtfully, “No one knows yet what happened this afternoon, Dickon. No one has talked to Ned yet, and the girl was so distraught it was hard to get anything sensible from her. We just assumed you took off on a lark of your own.” He hesitated and then continued, still in the unfamiliar yet intriguing confidential tones of one adult to another.

  “You know, Dickon, if our lord father were to think that Ned had left you alone in the meadows, he’d be none too happy about it. He’d be most wroth with Ned, of course. But he’d blame your Joan, too, I fear. He might even send her away.”

  “No!” Richard twisted in the saddle to look up at his brother. “Ned didn’t leave me alone,” he said breathlessly. “He didn’t, Edmund! I ran after the fox, that’s all!”

  “Well then, if that be true, you needn’t worry about Ned or Joan. After all, if the fault was yours, none could blame Ned, could they? But you do understand, Dickon, that if the fault was yours, you’ll be the one to be punished?”

  Richard nodded. “I know,” he whispered, and turned to gaze into the river currents flowing beneath the bridge, where he’d sacrificed a coin so many eventful hours ago, for luck.

  “You know, Dickon, I’ve been meaning to ask you…. Would you like me to make you a slingshot like the one George has? I cannot promise you when I’ll get around to it, mind you, but—”

  “You don’t have to do that, Edmund. I’d not tell on Ned!” Richard interrupted, sounding somewhat offended, and hunched his shoulders forward involuntarily as the walls of the castle materialized from the darkness ahead.

  Edmund was distinctly taken aback, and then bit back a grin. “My mistake, sorry!” he said, looking at his brother with the bemused expression of an adult suddenly discovering that children could be more than nuisances to be tolerated until they were old enough to behave as rational beings, could even be distinct individuals in their own right.

  As they approached the drawbridge that spanned the moat of lethal pointed stakes, torches flared to signal Richard’s safe return, and by the time Edmund passed through the gatehouse that gave entry into the inner bailey, their mother was awaiting them upon the ramp leading up into the great hall. Reining in before her, Edmund swung Richard down and into her upraised arms. As he did, he flashed Richard a grin and Richard was able to derive a flicker of comfort from that, the awareness that he, for once, had won Edmund’s unqualified approval.

  Richard was sitting on a table in the solar, so close to the east-wall fireplace that the heat from its flames gave his face a sunburnt flush. He winced as his mother swabbed with wine-saturated linen at the scratches upon his face and throat, but submitted without complaint to her ministrations. He was rather pleased, in fact, to so thoroughly command her attention; he could remember few occasions when she had treated his bruises with her own hand. Generally this would have been for Joan to do. But Joan was too shaken to be of assistance. Eyes reddened and swollen, she hovered in the background, from time to time reaching out to touch Richard’s hair, as tentatively as if she were daring a liberty that was of a sudden forbidden.

  Richard smiled at her with his eyes, quite flattered that she should have been crying so on his behalf, but she seemed little consoled by his sympathy and when he’d explained, rather haltingly, to his mother that he’d become separated from Ned and Joan in pursuit of his fox cub, Joan inexplicably began to cry again.

  “I heard you’re to be locked in the cellar under the great hall as your punishment…in the dark with the rats!”

  His brother George had sidled nearer, awaiting the chance to speak as soon as their mother moved away from the table. He was watching Richard now with intent blue-green eyes, and Richard tried to conceal his involuntary shudder. He had no intention of letting George know he had a morbid horror of rats, aware that if he did, he was all too likely to find one in his bed.

  Edmund came to his rescue, leaning over George to offer Richard a sip from his own cup of mulled wine.

  “Mind your mouth, George,” he said softly. “Or you might find yourself taking a tour of the cellar some night.”

  George glared at Edmund but did not venture a response, for he was not all that certain Edmund wouldn’t, if sufficiently provoked, follow through with his threat. Playing it safe, he held his tongue; although still a month shy of his tenth birthday, George had already developed a sophisticated sense of self-preservation.

  Setting Edmund’s cup down so abruptly that wine sloshed over onto the table, Richard slid hastily to the floor. He had at last heard the one voice he’d been waiting for.

  Edward was dismounting before the round Norman nave that housed the chapel named for St Mary Magdalene. He saw Richard as the boy bolted through the doorway of the solar and in three strides he covered the ground between them, catching Richard to him in a tight bone-bruising embrace and then laughing and swinging the youngster up into the air, high over his head.

  “Jesú, but you did give me some bad moments, lad! Be you all right?”

  “He’s fine.” Edmund had come through the doorway behind Richard, and now stood looking down at them as Edward knelt beside Richard in the dust. His eyes raked Edward with ironic amusement and a message flashed between them that passed, figuratively and literally, over Richard’s head.

  “He’s fine,” Edmund repeated, “but I daresay he’ll be taken severely to task for running off as he did. It seems he became lost chasing after that damned pet fox of his. But then, I needn’t tell you that, do I, Ned? After all, you were there.”

  “That’s right,” Edward said coolly. “I was.” His mouth twitched and then, as if on cue, he and Edmund were laughing. Coming lightly to his feet, Edward kept his arm warm around Richard’s shoulders as they moved across the bailey, murmuring, “Fox hunting, were you?”

  His voice was noncommittal and Richard nodded shyly, keeping his eyes upon Edward’s face.

  “Well…you might not be too good at keeping put, Dickon, but you’re very good, indeed, at keeping faith!” Edward said softly, and meeting Richard’s eyes, he winked and then grinned, and Richard discovered the joyful difference between being a sacrificial lamb and a trusted conspirator.

  Much to Richard’s surprise, Joan fled the solar as soon as Edward came through the doorway. But he had no time to dwell on her peculiar behavior, for Edward was lifting him up and depositing him back upon the table, saying, “Let me have a look at you.” Shaking his head in mock disbelief. “You look like you’ve been jousting with a bramblebush,” he said wryly, and Richard laughed.

  “I was,” he confided, and then looked up as his mother laid a hand lightly on his shoulder.

  She was studying her eldest son, her eyes speculative. He met her gaze levelly, with a faintly quizzical smile, and at length she said only, “You were lucky, Edward. Very lucky, indeed.”

  “Somehow, he always is, Ma Mère,” Edmund observed laconically.

  “I am, aren’t I?” Edward agreed complacently, and stepping back, brought his elbow up, as if by chance, to jostle Edmund’s arm and spill his drink. Edmund, just as quick, tilted the cup so that it splashed upon the sleeve of Edward’s doublet.

  “Edward! Edmund! This be no time to play the fool, tonight of all nights!”

  There was such unaccustomed asperity in the rebuke that they stared at her.

  “But that be what we do best, Ma Mère,” Edmund demurred, feeling it advisable t
o placate his irate parent with charm.

  Edward, a shade more perceptive, was frowning. “Why do you say ‘tonight of all nights,’ Ma Mère? It can’t be Dickon; he came to no harm. What has your nerves so on the raw?”

  She didn’t respond at once, shifting her gaze between their faces. “You read people well, Edward,” she said at last. “I hadn’t meant to tell you till the morrow…. While you both were out searching for Richard, word reached us from my brother.”

  The two boys exchanged glances. Their uncle, the Earl of Salisbury, was expected to reach Ludlow that week, leading an armed force from the North to join with their father’s men and those soon to come from Calais under command of their cousin, Salisbury’s son, the Earl of Warwick.

  “He was ambushed at a place called Blore Heath, to the north of Shrewsbury, by the Queen’s army. Your cousins Thomas and John were taken captive, but my brother and others were able to fight their way free. He sent word ahead to warn us, should reach Ludlow by tomorrow night.”

  There was silence, broken at last by Edward, who said matter-of-factly, “If the Queen is set upon war, she’ll not long keep the royal army at Coventry. She’ll march on Ludlow, Ma Mère, and soon.”

  The Duchess of York nodded. “Yes, Edward, you are quite right,” she said slowly. “She’ll move on Ludlow. I very much fear we can count on it.”

  2

  Ludlow

  October 1459

  Death waited in the dark. Richard could feel its presence, knew it was there. Death was no stranger to him, for all that he was just ten days past his seventh birthday. Death had always been very much a part of his world, had claimed a baby sister in her cradle, had taken cousins and playmates, and more than once in his earliest years of life, had threatened to take him, too. Now it was back, and like him, awaiting the coming of day. He shivered and pulled the fox-fur coverlet up toward his chin, retreated still further into the refuge of the bed. Beside him, his brother stirred sleepily and jabbed him in the ribs with an elbow.

  “Stop squirming, Dickon,” he mumbled and reached over to claim Richard’s pillow.

  Richard made a halfhearted attempt to regain his stolen property, but once again George’s three-year advantage proved to be a telling one, and the older boy was soon asleep, both pillows enfolded securely against his chest. Richard cushioned his head on his arm, watching with envy as his brother slept. In all of his seven years, he had never been awake at such an hour. But in all of his seven years, he had never been so afraid.

  He thought of the dawning day with dread. On the morrow, there was to be a battle. Men were to die, for reasons he did not fully understand. But he did understand, with chilling clarity, that when the day was done, his father and Ned and Edmund might be numbered among the dead.

  His brother’s pillow covering had slipped; he could see the tip of a protruding feather. He edged closer and fished it out, eyeing George with caution. But George was snoring softly and soon there was a downy pile between them on the bed. He began to separate them into two camps, which he mentally identified as “York” and “Lancaster.” The feathery forces of York were led, of course, by his father, the Duke of York, and those of Lancaster by the King, Harry of Lancaster, and the Frenchwoman who was his Queen.

  He continued methodically plucking feathers from George’s pillow and aligning them in opposing camps, but it didn’t help. He was unable to forget his fear. What if his father were to die? Or Ned? Ned and Edmund were men grown. Old enough to ride into battle tomorrow. Old enough to die.

  He began to build up the army of York until it vastly outnumbered Lancaster. He knew his father did not want to fight the King, and he did not think the King truly wanted to fight his father. Again and again he’d heard it said that the King shrank from shedding blood.

  But the Queen had no such qualms. Richard knew she hated his father, with all the passion the King lacked. She wanted his father dead; Richard had heard his cousin Warwick say so that very day. He wasn’t all that sure just why the Queen should hate his father so; but he had heard men say that his father had a better claim to the English crown than the King and he suspected this might have something to do with the Queen’s unrelenting hostility. It was confusing to Richard, though, for his father repeatedly vowed that the King was his sovereign and liege lord. He didn’t understand why his father could not just assure the Queen of his loyalty to King Harry. If she understood that, perhaps she would not hate his father so much then. Perhaps there need be no battle….

  He stiffened suddenly and then jerked upright in the bed, jarring George into wakeful wrath. He emerged from the coverlets with an oath pirated from Edward, irritation giving way to outrage as he inhaled a mouthful of feathers.

  “Damn you, Dickon,” he spluttered, grabbing for the younger boy. Richard was generally adroit at evading George’s vengeance, but now he made no attempt to escape, and George soon pinned him down against the mattress, somewhat surprised at the ease of his victory.

  “George, listen! Can you not hear? Listen!”

  Buffeting him with the pillow, with more exuberance now than anger, George at last heeded Richard’s muffled protests and cocked his head, listening.

  “Men are shouting,” he said uneasily.

  Dressing hastily in the dark, they crept from their bedchamber in the Pendower Tower. All of Ludlow was suddenly deep in unfriendly shadows, had become a sinister refuge for every malignant spirit that could be conjured up by the feverish imaginings of two fearful small boys. By the time they reached the east door of the great hall, they were stumbling over each other in their urgency to gain the security of torchlight and known voices.

  The great hall was sixty feet in length, thirty feet in width, and crowded with men, men rudely roused from sleep, men who were fastening hastily donned garments, buckling scabbard at hip and thigh, kicking impatiently at the castle dogs that were circling about in frenzied excitement. At first, Richard saw only the swords, what seemed to him to be a forest of naked blades, each nearly as long as a man’s height and capable of shearing a head from its body with one stroke. Gradually he began to pick out familiar faces. His mother’s brother, Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury. Salisbury’s grown son and namesake, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. William Hastings, a youthful friend of his father’s. And by the open stone hearth, Ned and Edmund.

  It was some moments, however, before he was able to find his parents. The Duke of York and his Duchess were standing apart from the others in the hall. As Richard watched, his mother reached up and touched her fingers lightly to her husband’s lips; he enfolded her hand within his own. Richard caught his breath. He had never seen his mother other than immaculate, never less than perfect in her person and her poise. This white-faced woman with masses of unbound hair enveloping her in bright disarray was a stranger to him.

  “Take care, Dickon, lest we be seen,” George was hissing in his ear, but Richard shook off his brother’s restraining hand and slipped around the dais, into the hall. As desperate as he was for reassurance, he dared not approach his parents. He chose, instead, to wend his way cautiously through the press toward his brothers.

  “But why should you go with our uncle Salisbury and cousin Warwick rather than with our lord father and me, Ned?”

  As Edward started to answer Edmund, a small shadow materialized unexpectedly at his elbow, so silently and suddenly that his taut nerves betrayed him and he snapped, “For Christ’s sake, Dickon, how came you to be here? Why are you not abed?”

  But as he looked into the boy’s stricken dark eyes, he relented. Reaching down, he swung Richard up easily into his arms and, with Edmund trailing behind, shoved his way across the hall, toward the screen that extended across the southwest end of the chamber.

  As he set Richard back on his feet, footsteps sounded behind them and George dived breathlessly behind the screen. For a long moment nothing was said, and then Richard whispered, “Tell us, Ned…please.”

  Edward glanced at Edmund, who shrugged.
His eyes flicked back to Richard and George. “Aye, it’s best that you know. We’ve been betrayed. Look around the hall. There’s one face you’ll not see here, one we were foolish enough to trust. Andrew Trollope has gone over to Lancaster, and with him, the whole of his Calais garrison. Moreover, he has full knowledge of what our battle captains planned to do on the morrow.”

  “What will you do?”

  Edward shrugged. “What can we do, George? We haven’t the men to fight, not with Trollope’s defection. And Ludlow could not withstand a siege. We can only order our army to disperse, to scatter. And then ride like the Devil were on our tails.”

  They were both staring at him, stunned. George, recovering first, blurted out, “You mean…run away?” And then shrank back before their rage.

  “What would you have us do?” Edward flared. “Keep our pride and lose our heads? Need I tell you what will befall us if we’re in Ludlow come the morrow? Every man in this hall would be dead by sunset.”

  “No!” Richard gasped. “No, you mustn’t stay!”

  Edmund, no less angry than Edward, was glaring at George. “Send them back to bed, Ned,” he said curtly.

  Edward, though, was belatedly remembering that a ten-year-old boy could not, in justice, be held accountable for all that he said. He felt a pressure against his arm, saw that Richard had moved closer. Until this moment, he’d not given much thought to Richard and George, beyond assuring himself that none would harm a child, not even Lancaster’s vengeful Queen. Thinking now of what the little boy would face on the morrow, he realized, somewhat to his surprise, that he’d have given a great deal to be able to spare Richard what lay ahead when Ludlow fell to the forces of Lancaster.

  As if sensitive to his thoughts, Richard asked uncertainly, “Do we go with you, Ned?” And his heartbeat seemed to speed up, to fill his ears with the sound as Edward shook his head.

  “That’s not possible, Dickon. Not the way we must ride.”