By Loyalty Bound: The Story of the Mistress of King Richard III (2 page)

“It isn’t as if the boy is Henry’s son anyway,” Anne’s mother had commented as she told the story to her daughters. “You tell me how a man who can neither move nor speak can father a child?”

Anne remembered how she had squirmed at her mother’s words when her younger sister had asked why such a man couldn’t be a father. Their mother had ignored the question and gone on with the story. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see that the prince carries the features of Somerset,” she had told them, and although Anne hadn’t understood what her mother meant at the time she now knew that it was common gossip that the former queen and the Duke of Somerset were lovers.

Her mother remained bitter about what happened that day at Wakefield. “The Lancastrians broke the Christmas truce,” she said. “But the Duke of York was impetuous. He should never have left Sandal Castle to fight with so few men, even if their supplies were dangerously low. He should have waited until he had an army strong enough to defeat them. Then your father and your grandfather would still be with us.” She always began to cry at this point as she told the story. “They cut the head from your grandfather’s body and stuck it up on a spike on Micklegate Bar,” she wept. “At least your father was spared that indignity.”

Anne was in the tower next morning when the door creaked open and her sister came in and sat down by the fire. Izzie picked up her embroidery, stared at it for a moment, then put it down again before beginning to speak. “The soldiers are taking up positions on the outer wall and I have heard that the Stanley army is not far away.”

“Stanley is never far away,” remarked Anne. “But we are safe enough if we remain in the castle.” She caught the expression of guilt on Izzie’s face. “You haven’t been out to the village, have you?” she asked her sister. She knew that Izzie didn’t always take her own safety seriously and was in the habit of putting on an old cloak and slipping past the guards, especially on a market day when many people passed to and fro.

Her sister’s face coloured a little. “It’s so dull in here,” she complained. “Surely no harm can come to me in Hornby?”

“Izzie! This is no game. We are not confined here as a punishment, but to keep us safe.”

“But it is boring!” she said. “I am going out of my mind with nothing to do but this... needlework!” She picked up her embroidery and threw it angrily onto the fire. Anne watched in astonishment as the flames first singed the edges and then took hold, consuming the painstaking stitching that her sister had taken the long winter months to complete. And as she watched it burn Izzie’s expression changed to one of regret and Anne had to restrain her as she reached towards the hearth to try to save what small fragments were left.

“Let it burn,” she said as the tears flowed down her sister’s cheeks. “You cannot save it now.”

“What will happen to us?” she sobbed. “The Duke of Gloucester has come to rob us of our inheritance.”

“Hush, hush,” comforted Anne with her arms around her sister. She wished that their mother was there to help and advise them. They rarely saw her since her new husband, Sir Edmund Sutton, had taken her away to his family home at Dudley. And although their mother had pleaded with Uncle James to allow her daughters to go with her, he was adamant that Anne and Elizabeth could never be safe except at Hornby.

“The Duke of Gloucester had a stand-off with some of Stanley’s men yesterday,” Izzie said, wiping her cheeks on a scrap of linen as she became calmer. “There was some fighting at a crossing point on the Ribble. The Stanleys are planning a siege,” she said. “They are bringing up a siege machine and a huge battering ram and there is rumour of a cannon too.”

Anne went to the window and stared down the valley to the south. For the moment it looked peaceful enough under the clear skies.

“Who has told you all this?” she asked as she noticed women and children making their way across the castle bailey towards the keep, their arms filled with bundles.

“It is the talk of the village. People have been told to take shelter.”

Anne crossed the room quickly. “I must speak to Uncle James,” she said, “and discover what is happening.”

Outside the door she almost bumped into two guards who were climbing up the twisting steps to the battlements, carrying a crate of arrows between them.

“Sorry, m’lady,” they muttered as she stepped back to allow them to pass.

She hurried down to where her Aunt Joan, with baby William on her hip, was ushering the crowd of women and children towards the kitchens and the cellars beneath the hall.

“Is it true?” she asked. “Are the Stanleys coming?”

“So we’ve been told,” she said. “Go back to your chamber - and stay away from the windows.”

“Let me help. Tell me what to do,” she asked.

“Anne!” The sound of her uncle’s voice rang across the courtyard. “Go back to your chamber!”

“Let me help. Let me do something,” she pleaded.

“Go back to your chamber. I need to know that you’re safe,” he said. “Where is your sister?”

“She’s in the tower, but -”

“Then join her,” he interrupted.

“But -”

“I think you should do as your uncle tells you.” Anne turned at the authoritative voice. The Duke of Gloucester’s face was serious and stern. “Come,” he said, taking her elbow in his hand, “I will escort you.”

If it had been anyone else Anne would have shaken them off, but she allowed herself to be led across to the stairs. The duke followed her up and, as she paused at the top and glanced into the hall where women and children were milling in what looked like complete chaos, she felt his hand enclose her upper arm. “I believe your chamber is in the tower,” he said.

She was about to protest that she could go wherever she liked inside the castle, but his eyes quelled her outburst without a word being spoken.

“Is it true that the Stanleys have a cannon?” she asked him as they reached her door.

“Yes,” he replied. “I have seen it.”

“They won’t succeed, will they?” She turned to him for reassurance and was suddenly aware that he was standing very close to her. She watched a moment of hesitation cloud his face.

“I promise I will do everything I can to keep you safe. Come,” he said, his upper arm brushing against hers as he reached to open the door for her, “go into your chamber.”

Anne went inside and was surprised when he followed her and stood quietly before the hearth.

“What have you been burning?” he asked after a moment, peering at the ashes that still held the aroma of the blackened fabric.

“My sister, Elizabeth, was discontent with her sewing and threw it on the fire,” said Anne.

“It was poor sewing anyway,” said Izzie from where she was peering out at the scene below.

“Come away from the window,” the duke told her and Anne was surprised to see her sister obey him. “The slit may look too narrow for an archer’s aim, but a stone from a siege engine can cause much damage and you must stay back from the outer wall if a bombardment begins. In fact I will speak to your uncle about moving you from here. You would be safer in the hall.”

Anne was sorry when the door thudded shut behind him and his footfalls faded down the stairs.

“What a very unpleasant person he is,” remarked Izzie.

Anne looked at her sister in surprise. “Do you think so?” she said.

“Oh don’t tell me you like him,” groaned Izzie. “He’s insufferable. Who does he think he is, coming here and taking charge of everything? Perhaps he will change his mind about the inheritance now that he has seen you making eyes at him. Perhaps he will ask the king to award him your guardianship instead of Lord Stanley so that he can take you to wife and gain himself another castle into the bargain.”

“I very much doubt it. I think the Duke of Gloucester will be seeking a richer heiress than me.”

“You wouldn’t turn him down though, would you?” persisted Izzie.

“It will not happen, so it is of no matter,” replied Anne, annoyed that her sister could read her emotions so well. “We have more immediate concerns. I fear our uncles cannot hold out for ever, even with the support of the Duke of Gloucester.”

“I don’t want to be taken from here,” said Izzie, her mood suddenly changing and her chin trembling as she struggled to control her tears. “I don’t want to be married,” she said and Anne’s heart was wrenched as she saw the frightened little girl inside the hard shell that her sister presented to the world. “I... I feel afraid,” she confessed.

Anne put her arms around her sister and rubbed her back as their warm faces pressed together. The familiar scent of the herbs that Izzie used to rinse her hair filled Anne’s nostrils as she searched for some words of comfort, but her own fear was too great.

“It will be all right,” she said at last, trying to convince herself. But as Izzie pulled away from her there was an unspoken understanding between them that they were vulnerable and there was nothing that they could do. Their fate was to watch and wait and be taken with no more compunction than a chest of silver as the victor’s prize.

James Harrington glanced up as the young duke came into the hall. He had been upstairs with Anne and Elizabeth for quite some time and despite being in the throes of locking down Hornby, James had had time to consider the way his niece had looked at the duke as he’d led her away - and the way that the king’s young brother had looked at Anne. He saw the obvious attraction that each had for the other and he wondered if it was something to be encouraged.

It had always been assumed that the duke would marry Warwick’s younger daughter. But now that Warwick had rebelled there would be no such match and the Duke of Gloucester would be forced to look elsewhere for a bride. A week ago James would not have dared to think that the king’s brother would want any form of alliance with the Harrington family, but his unexpected arrival at their gate and his determination to help them defend the castle against Lord Stanley had changed that. Could it be possible, wondered James, for his niece to become a member of the royal family and so link the Harringtons to the Plantagenet dynasty? The problem with that idea, he acknowledged to himself as he nodded in response to a question from one of his men-at-arms, was that Anne was no prize without Hornby.

In the tower chamber, Anne ignored the duke’s advice and crossed to the window. The great wooden doors that secured the curtain wall were shut tight, the portcullis lowered and the drawbridge raised. Everyone was watching for an army from the south who would set up camp outside the castle and wait; wait until those inside were left to choose between starvation and surrender. Would her Uncle James concede? Would he allow the castle and his nieces and the inheritance he believed should be his fall into the hands of his enemy? Anne shivered as she realised that he might have no choice. And for herself? Which would she prefer, she asked herself. A slow death from lack of food or the prospect of marriage to an unknown son of the Stanleys?

A flash of sunlight reflecting on metal caught her attention. She thought she saw a movement near the riverbank.

“Men,” said Izzie, standing beside her. “They are hidden in the long grass and behind the trees.”

“So it will soon begin.”

“God damn them!” burst out her sister, then crossed herself in penitence for the oath. But as she turned away Anne saw that Izzie’s fear had been replaced once more by a gleam of excitement in her eyes, and she worried that the time would come when she would be unable to protect her.

Balderstone Hall, where Isabella de Balderstone lived with her widowed mother, stood in the fertile valley of the River Ribble. Its dark stone walls were surrounded by trees and in another month it would be almost hidden to the casual observer. As Robert Harrington approached he heard the dogs begin to bark; first one hesitant voice and then a gradual cacophony of sound that brought servants out from the barn and stable block to see who was coming. But Robert sought only one figure and he smiled when he saw Isabella come out of the dairy with a brown cloak pulled around her shoulders as protection against the flakes of snow that were falling from an overcast sky. He forgot his own weariness as she came forward to greet him. Her fair, curly hair was escaping in damp tendrils from beneath her plain linen cap and her smoky grey eyes were filled with both welcome and concern. He took her in his arms and pressed his icy lips to the warmth of her cheek. Each time he saw her he thanked God for his fortune in gaining the permission of her mother to take her as his bride. Her wealth was not spectacular and the estates were shared between her and an older sister, but they would be a welcome addition to his own and for a third son of a family such as the Harringtons she was a good match.

“I did not expect to see you so soon,” she told him as they walked towards the manor house.

“But I sent word that you should expect me. Don’t tell me that the idle lad never arrived. I paid him well.”

“The message came,” she reassured him as she helped him take off his coat and gestured for the servant to bring more logs to the hearth. “But I thought that you would have ridden straight to Hornby.”

“Why so?” he asked as she spread his coat to dry.

“Then you don’t know?”

“I had a missive from the king asking me to rally my men yet again and meet him at York.” He stopped to listen as he saw that she had urgent news.

“Lord Stanley has taken an army and weapons to lay siege to Hornby Castle.”

“Are you sure? Yes, of course,” he added as she began to nod. “You would not have told me otherwise.”

He winced at a pain in his leg. The sharp edge of a sword had ripped open his flesh at Lose-Cote Field when he had been a moment too slow to turn his horse. And worse, the wound had been inflicted by a man he had thought of as a friend - a man he had known well during his years at Middleham Castle when they had both served the Earl of Warwick, before he turned traitor. “It seems that Stanley grasps the opportunity to take Hornby whilst he believes we are pre-occupied elsewhere.” Robert paused and looked towards the part-shuttered window where he could see the snow beginning to settle on the higher ground. “I hope that my brother has remained at Hornby and not gone to York,” he said.