Virgin Widow. Anne O'Brien

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      ‘This castle,’ I stated, voice rising, ‘is one of the largest in the country.’

      ‘That does not make it the most comfortable. Or where I would wish to be.’ He looked at me as if I were an annoying wasp. ‘Who are you, anyway?’ he asked.

      ‘I am Lady Anne Neville,’ with all the presumption of indulged youth. ‘Who are you?’

      ‘Richard Plantagenet.’

      ‘Oh.’ I was no wiser, although the name Plantagenet was a royal one. ‘My father is the Earl of Warwick.’

      ‘I know. The Earl is my cousin, so we are cousins once removed, I suppose.’ He did not seem delighted at the prospect.

      ‘Who is your father?’ I asked.

      ‘The Duke of York. He is dead.’

      I ignored the shortness of the reply, homing in on the information. Now I knew. ‘So your brother is King Edward.’ That put the newcomer into quite a different category in my mind.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘How old are you?’ I continued my nosy catechism. ‘You don’t look old enough to begin your training as a knight. I am more than eight.’

      ‘I am twelve years old. I am already a Knight of the Garter.’

      ‘Only because your brother is King!’

      He shrugged as he bent to pat a hound that had wandered in, clearly not prepared to offer any more conversation.

      ‘I too am very important,’ I informed him. I had no dignity.

      ‘You are a girl. And still a child.’

      Which put me entirely in my place. I turned on my heel and stomped from the room, leaving him to make his own way or wait for Isabel’s tender mercies. I think it was Francis Lovell who eventually took pity on him and took him to my mother’s chamber. I was not there. Lady Masham had run me to ground in her fussy manner and scolded me for absenting myself from my lessons.

      

      I was not satisfied with my brief acquaintance.

      Richard Plantagenet continued to say little, but took to his studies well enough. He intrigued me. His confidence. His quiet, self-contained competence. I began to haunt the exercise yard and the lists when I could where he practised the knightly drills. And I was right. He suffered. He did not have the stature or strength of muscle to hold his own against Francis, who was often pitted against him. Richard spent a lot of time sprawled in the dust and dirt. But he did not give in. And I had to admire his courage, his determination to scrape himself up from the floor. Quick and alert, he soon learned that he could make up in guile and speed for what he lacked in size and weight. He could ride a horse as if born in the saddle.

      But still he was often on the floor with a bloody nose and dust plastered over his face. After a particularly robust session with sword and shield, Master Ellerby sent him to sit on the bench as the side of the exercise yard. Still dazed, Richard Plantagenet rubbed his face and nose on his sleeve. I crept along by the wall and sat on the bench with him. An opportunity too good to miss, to find out more whilst his guard was down. What did I want to know? Anything, really. Anything to explain this solemn youth who sat quietly at meals, who carved the roast beef with stern concentration, who watched and absorbed and said little.

      ‘Are you content here?’ I asked for want of anything more interesting to say.

      He snorted, pushing his hair from his eyes. ‘Better when my head is not ringing from the Master’s gentle blows! I swear Edward did not intend me to be knocked senseless when he sent me here.’

      ‘You said you did not want to be here.’ The implied criticism of Middleham still rankled. ‘Where would you rather be, that’s better than here?’

      ‘With my brother. In London. That’s where I shall go when I am finished here.’

      ‘Do you miss your family?’

      He thought for a moment. ‘Not much.’

      ‘Do you have brothers other than the King? Sisters?’

      ‘Yes. Ten.’

      ‘Ten?’ Shock made me turn to face him. ‘I only have Isabel. That’s enough.’

      ‘But some are dead, and all are older than I. George of Clarence is the one I know best.’

      ‘You are the Duke of Gloucester.’ I had acquired some knowledge since our exchange of views. ‘Your father was attainted traitor when he fought against the Lancastrian upstart Henry, the last king.’

      ‘Yes.’ Richard bared his teeth. ‘And he died for it on the battlefield at Wakefield. And my brother Edmund with him. Margaret of Anjou, Queen Margaret, had my father’s head cut from his body and put on a spike above Micklegate Bar in York. A despicable end for a brave man.’

      It was the longest speech I had heard him make. He still felt the hurt of it.

      ‘Did you have to hide?’

      ‘In a way. We—my brother Clarence and my mother—had to go into exile for our safety. We went to the Netherlands.’ His guard was clearly down, offering so much.

      ‘Did you like it?’ I could not imagine being forced to leave England in fear of my life, being forced to beg for charity from some foreign family and be unsure that I would ever be able to return. I knew I would have hated it.

      ‘Well enough.’

      Now what? I sought for another topic to lure him into speech. It was difficult. ‘Were you called Richard after your father? I was named Anne for my mother.’

      ‘No. After your grandfather, Richard Neville, the Earl of Salisbury. He stood as my godfather at my baptism and so I was named Richard.’

      ‘Oh.’ His connection with my family was getting stronger. His nose still bled and his sleeve was well spotted with blood. I handed him a square of linen. Lady Masham would have approved, I thought.

      ‘My thanks.’ He inclined his head with a courtly little gesture, then, wincing, applied the linen with careful enthusiasm.

      ‘Where were you born?’

      ‘Fotheringhay.’

      ‘I was born here. I like it here more than any place else.’

      ‘I like it too,’ he admitted suddenly, an admission that promptly warmed me to him. ‘It reminds me of Ludlow where I spent some months when I was much younger. Before we were driven out by the Lancastrians at the point of a sword.’ There was the bitterness again.

      ‘Why were you sent here? Why here?’

      His angled look was wary as if unsure of the reason for my question. I had no ulterior motive other than basic inquisitiveness.

      ‘It was the only household of sufficient СКАЧАТЬ