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СКАЧАТЬ snatch at a gold coin he spied in the gutter. What an appealing alliance. What an opportunity for the future to catch a wife of royal blood, descended from the old King’s second son. I swear you were aware of it too.’

      ‘Of course I was,’ he capitulated at last, ‘and of course I have considered the possibility of a Mortimer King.’ He leaned swiftly to kiss the edge of my jaw before I could evade him. ‘Quite a catch indeed. All I wanted was the Plantagenet blood in my bed, when you were old enough for me to get you there.’ He became serious. ‘But in all honesty, Elizabeth, none of us could have seen this eventuality. There was no thought that we would have been left with Richard, unpredictable at best, dangerously capricious at worst, and no direct heir on the horizon after him. The child wife he has taken will be no good to him for many years.’

      Which rough summing-up of the situation worried me even more. ‘Your father sees all eventualities that can bring him power. And it was certainly in his mind. I was a gift from heaven. Look where my royal connections could now lead us.’

      Harry understood perfectly. ‘I am looking. But to what purpose? All will hang on where Lancaster sees his future.’

      Indeed all hung in the balance. All rested with Lancaster himself. If he had returned merely to claim his dukedom and his estates, then what cause to worry? Richard would remain gloriously King of England with Lancaster his cousinly counsellor. But if Lancaster had greater ambitions, what then? If the succession was in any manner disturbed, the royal blood of my Mortimer nephew must be thrown into the mix. And what would Lancaster do about that? If he proved not to be willing to bow the knee before Richard, would he be prepared to recognise a Mortimer claim before his own? But had I not rejected such a possibility? There was suddenly, out of nowhere, an air of menace in the room, of battle and bloodshed. I feared it but there was no means of dispelling it. As Harry said. All rested with Lancaster.

      It was Harry’s voice that dragged me from my thoughts.

      ‘We have some unfinished business.’ Knife at last discarded, he pulled on my hand, so that I was in his arms, that brief earlier moment of intimacy restored to our pleasure. This room had a curtain-shrouded bed in it. ‘Dear Elizabeth. Do you recall our wedding?’

      ‘Yes. You patted my head, gave me a pair of gloves and a hawk, probably because someone instructed you to do so, then abandoned me to join in the jousting.’

      ‘And you returned to live with your parents.’

      ‘And when I came back, within two years my parents were dead, so was the hawk.’

      ‘I gave you another.’

      ‘So you did.’ I smiled at the memories of my growing up at Alnwick. ‘You were always kind, even before you decided that you loved me.’ And while he was distracted, pressing his mouth against my throat: ‘If you go to meet Lancaster – when you go – I will go with you, dear Harry.’

      He was not distracted at all. ‘No, you will not. As the Earl would say, it’s no place for a woman.’

      Was it not? I turned my face so that my lips met his, murmuring: ‘Now that we have that little domestic issue out of the way, let us take up where we left off.’

      ‘There is a bed.’

      ‘And you still reek of horse and sweat and leather and…’ I sniffed.

      ‘You are too fastidious.’

      ‘I am not fastidious enough.’ I made him laugh as I unlaced his shirt. ‘If you wish me to be quicker I can use that knife.’ It lay on the floor beside us.

      ‘I don’t need a knife. I can be very fast. Are you going to be a submissive wife?’

      ‘Mortimer wives are never submissive.’

      ‘Which I am of a mind to disprove.’

      Disrobed in no time at all, our reunion was sweet and thorough, with no more forays into family loyalties until Harry was lacing himself into a damask robe of vibrant colour that even dulled his russet hair.

      ‘We will be leaving before the end of the week.’

      ‘I know.’

      ‘I will deliver your cousinly good wishes to Lancaster.’

      ‘Thank you.’ And then, because I could not completely dispel my worries: ‘I have a bad feeling about this, Harry. Make sure that you know what Lancaster wants from you.’

      Harry belted the garment loosely around his hips.

      ‘Oh, we will. And we will make sure that he knows what we want from him.’

      And I would know too. I had no intention of being left at Alnwick when contentious issues were raised with my cousin of Lancaster, but better not to reveal my plans. Better to allow Harry to believe that he had persuaded me to be compliant. How had we been wed for so many years and he not realise that when he marched south, I would be with him? For the moment I would make my preparations, without fuss, as he made his.

Chapter Two

      The Percy household spent the following days exclusively in making preparation for the march south to meet up with Lancaster, the Percy retainers arriving in number to camp both inside and outside our walls when space became an issue. Meanwhile two letters arrived for me, brought in a package of correspondence for the Earl. With a sister, a sister by law, as well as a slew of royal cousins, I was rarely without sources of information. Knowledge was power, knowledge tucked away within the lines of female and family gossip, which was in short supply for me in the northern March.

      Seated in solitude in my chamber, selecting my sister’s note first, I could imagine the venom with which it was written before I saw the familiar hurried scrawl. Four years younger than I, Philippa had acquired a forthright turn of phrase, and why would she not? Her second husband, Richard FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel, had met his death in the horrifying fashion of that doled out to a traitor, at Richard’s hands on Tower Hill for his part in the uprising to force Richard into seemly behaviour. Although she was now married again to Sir Thomas Poynings, revenge against Richard was never far from Philippa’s heart. And so it proved to be.

       To my dearest Elizabeth,

      I do not know where this will find you, since I imagine your Percy lords will not be slow in declaring their intent with this recent invasion, if that is what it turns out to be. It is my hope that they will declare for Lancaster. I will never forgive Richard for the blood on his hands. If you have any influence, use it in the memory of the agony our royal cousin brought to me. My lord of Arundel did not deserve death, nor the manner of it. I know that to act against the King could be damned as treason, but it was with the best of intentions, and for Richard to have my lord’s head hacked from his body in so foul a manner is beyond forgiveness.

      Nothing here that I would not expect. But this next surprised me, that Philippa was so well informed.

      If Henry of Lancaster is determined to recover his inheritance, I do not see him stopping there. He was always a boy driven by principle, even if it was only to put Richard in the dust when they had nothing more than wooden swords. I would welcome any choice he makes СКАЧАТЬ