Kitabı oxu: «Red Rose, White Rose»

PROLOGUE

Provins, County of Champagne, France, 1275

At first there was only a subtle hint of fragrance borne on the breeze, an exquisite teasing of the senses. To the knight on his weary warhorse it was like the breath of God, lifting the hairs on the back of his neck and stirring the golden leopards on his banner.

‘It is the scent of roses!’ he cried to his companions. ‘In the Holy Land we called it God’s Incense.’

When the cavalcade breasted the hill ahead he reined in his horse with a gasp of wonder. All over the wide plain below stretched a carpet of red roses, covering the earth as far as the eye could see, as if a celestial gardener had scattered divine seed. The knight gazed in silent awe, struck by the power of the symbolism laid before him; that the single rose, an object of beauty and simplicity could, when massed with a myriad others, become a potent force, a source of mystery and strength. The words of a hymn sprang into his mind, which he had heard sung in the dust and heat of the Holy Land by choristers in his crusading army.

There is no rose of such vertue

As is the rose that bore Jesu,

For in this rose contained was

Heaven and earth in a little space.

‘If there is a heaven on earth,’ he declared, ‘it is surely here.’

The knight was Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, crusader brother to Edward I, King of England and known throughout Christendom as Edmund ‘Crouchback’ or ‘The Cross-Bearer’. Returning through France from his crusade, he was making a mercy mission to Provins where the Count of Champagne had recently died, leaving his young widow and their baby son vulnerable to abduction by neighbouring barons, eager to acquire access to the great wealth generated by the famous rose fields.

Grown from a single root brought back from Damascus by an earlier crusader, the precious roses were not just objects of beauty, they were an industry. Their dried petals became shards of perfumed sunshine to freshen the rushes on a rich man’s floor; their floral essence could be distilled into attar of roses to perfume a lady’s breast or diluted into rosewater for bathing and cooking; rose leaves were pounded into healing poultices and even the prunings, with their long, sharp thorns could be woven into fences for protecting flocks and crops.

But it was the rose of ‘vertue’ that Edmund held in his mind when he first encountered Blanche, the lady in distress. Wearing white robes of mourning, she held her baby in her arms and her face was sweet and troubled. ‘The Blessed Virgin has answered my prayers,’ she sighed as he kissed her hand. By the next rose harvest Edmund and Blanche were married and the red Damask rose became for him a talisman, a badge of honour which he bore on his shield and gave to his favoured followers; the Red Rose of Lancaster.

A hundred years later another Edmund, younger brother to the great John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, was created Duke of York by their father, King Edward III. This Edmund aimed to better his brother in all things, including the heraldic symbol of his dukedom. He could not have the red rose so he chose the white, the lovely wild rose of England with its five creamy petals and fierce, hooked thorns. He declared the white rose superior to the red because it was native to the soil it grew in, spreading over the hills and valleys of England in great tangled brakes, delighting all with its airy fragrance and spangled masses of blooms but repelling any who tried to seize it. Edmund had his minstrels compose a song in praise of the white rose:

Of a rose, a lovely rose

Of a rose I sing a song.

Lyth and lysten, both old and younge

How the white rose becomen sprong,

A fairer rose to oure leking

Sprong there never in kynges lond.

During the next century, in the battle for supremacy between Lancaster and York, the red rose and the white were to scratch a bloody trail across the ‘kynges lond’, leaving England blighted and bleeding.

PART ONE

1

Langleydale, Co Durham

Cicely

I breathed deeply of the scented air that swept off the Teesdale fells. It carried the chill of snow-capped mountains and the smell of juniper. When I was a small child my father had perched me in front of him on his great warhorse and taken me out on the moors to teach me the names of the peaks and pikes that rolled towards the horizon to the north and west of our home. Now I identified them one after another all the way to Cross Fell, misty blue in the distance; Snowhope, Ireshope and Burnhope, Holwick, Mickle, Cronkley and Widdybank. Their names sang in my head like a psalm, accompanied by the moan of the wind over the rock-strewn slopes and the cries of the birds that haunted them.

When I turned my mare’s head to the east, her ears framed a view even more familiar. Each beck and stream from those high moors fed into the River Tees, which flowed through a valley ever-wider and greener as it meandered towards the coast. Dominating the upper reaches of this fertile basin was Raby Castle, the ancestral home of the Neville family – my family. Renowned as one of England’s great northern fortresses, Raby’s nine massive towers sprawled below me like the giants of legend; they loomed over the meagre mud-plastered cotts of the village beyond its moat. I had lived most of my seventeen years within those soaring walls. To my mother it was a palace, a great haven of security and splendour demonstrating infallibly the enormous wealth and power of the Nevilles, but to me it had become a prison. Often I had felt like a caged bird longing to fly. It was wonderful to be out, after a winter confined by its grey stones, up high above Langley Beck, relishing the wind in my face and the trembling anticipation of the hooded falcon on my fist.

‘Look lively, Cis! Stop admiring the view and start working that bird of yours.’

It was my brother who spoke. We Nevilles were a numerous family and I could count six brothers who still lived; some I liked better than others. Three of them were out hunting with me on that March morning, but this particular brother held a special place in my life. Dark and even of temper, Cuthbert was my personal champion, five years my senior and sworn to protect me for life by an oath made to our father before his death. He was an expert swordsman, had enormous skill with the lance and a physique unsurpassed among the knights of the Northern March. Nevertheless I did not let him order me about.

‘Selina will fly in good time, Cuddy, when the dogs put up some partridge. I do not fly her at inferior prey.’

His baptismal name was Cuthbert, after the great hermit-saint of the Holy Isle whose bones lay only five and twenty miles away in Durham Cathedral, but I used the nickname he had earned among his fellow henchmen at Raby for his close affinity with horses. Not only was Cuddy the local name for the saint, it was also one of the many northern words for a horse, particularly the small, strong, nimble pony which carried men and goods over the treacherous terrain of the border moors. Cuddy had the knack of getting a good performance out of even the most stubborn nag. It would not be boasting to say that I sat a horse as well as he did, since it was Cuddy who had taught me to ride, and I rode astride from the very first lesson, despite the disadvantage of wearing skirts.

His reaction to my protest was indignant. ‘Huh! It will be a miracle if your merlin brings down a partridge. They are twice her size.’

We were hunting game for the Easter feast that was just over a week away. The birds would hang until then to intensify their flavour, while we Christians completed our Lenten fast. Cuddy preferred chasing stag. On this hunt he was acting as my bodyguard and the captain of our armed escort. He carried no hawk and, in my opinion, knew little or nothing about them.

‘You may think that, big brother, but Selina can bring down snipe, which are the same size as partridge and fly a lot faster.’

I dropped my reins briefly to remove the crested hood from the little bird on my other fist and felt her claws clench expectantly over the thick leather gauntlet that protected my hand and wrist. Released from the imprisonment of the blindfold, the falcon blinked and her yellow eyes began to dart about, filled with anticipation at the sight of the moor and the busy spaniel quartering the heather ahead of us. My palfrey pranced excitedly as I gathered up the reins and I bent to murmur calming words in her ear.

In a loud explosion of noise a covey of partridge burst up from the ground. ‘Climb, Selina, climb,’ I yelled, releasing the merlin’s jesses and sending her off my fist as the game birds sped away from us, swerving and tumbling in panic.

For a few joyful seconds I watched the powerful beat of my falcon’s wings as she scaled the wind, gaining height for her stoop and then the spaniel let out a throaty growl of warning, which crescendoed into a volley of barks. Only twenty yards away half a dozen men wearing protective canvas jacks and wielding an assortment of rustic weapons rose as if from nowhere, like demons from the underworld, and ran snarling and yelling down the slope towards us, leaping over the straggling heather which had so successfully hidden their presence. They must have belly-crawled from the cover of the stunted trees that grew in a rocky cleft nearby, where the beck tumbled down a steep part of the fell-side.

Cuddy drew his sword. ‘Holy St Michael – reivers! They’re after the horses. Ride, Cis – ride for the castle! Stop for nothing. I’ll hold them off.’ He wheeled his horse to face the oncoming foe and charged at the front-runner, yelling the family call-to-arms. ‘À Neville! To me!’

From the corner of my eye I spied the first reiver fall as I set my horse’s head down the slope. There I saw my other two brothers, Will and Ned, throw off their hawks, draw their weapons and urge their horses into a gallop, hurtling past me to give Cuddy support and returning his warcry, their mouths wide, faces twisted into angry scowls. Pounding up the hill behind them, yelling defiance, came our escort of half a dozen armed horsemen.

Reivers were the universal enemy, even here on the southernmost edge of the Northern March. Within the miles of untamed territory between Scotland and England known as the Debatable Lands, title to land and property was hotly contested and the rule of law rarely successfully applied. Gangs of bandits operated freely and internecine feuds abounded but however much they fought amongst themselves, English landholders and their tenants were united in their hatred of the Scottish reiver clans – Armstrongs, Elliots, Maxwells and Johnsons, to name but a few. These rampaging villains swooped down from the hills without warning, sometimes in a large troop to raid a whole town or village, sometimes in a small posse to grab whatever plunder they could, robbing travellers at random, raiding a single farm or rustling a herd of cattle and driving the beasts to a secret muster deep in the mountains.

Cuddy had automatically assumed that these particular bandits were after our horses, a valuable commodity, especially when of good breeding and training as ours were. Since he and I had strayed a small distance from the rest of the hunting party perhaps they had not realized how many of us there were nor how well armed and skilled in combat. Considerably older than me, my brother William was not only a knight of some renown but held estates and a seat in parliament as Lord Fauconberg and had been accompanied to the hunt by a number of his young retainers, including the brother next to me in age, nineteen-year-old Edward, known as Ned. In this part of the world no knight or squire ever rode out in less than half-armour, belting on his sword and carrying a mace or battle-axe slung from his saddle-bow, so I was confident they would make short work of the attackers. The hunt servants, unarmed except for their hunting knives, obviously thought the same because they called in the dogs and retreated only a short distance before turning back to watch the skirmish. Despite Cuddy’s order to ride non-stop to Raby, I was tempted to follow suit, hoping to lure back my precious merlin Selina from wherever she had found a safe perch. However, even as the notion entered my head my own situation suddenly became perilous.

We had misjudged these reivers. They were not a small band of snatch-thieves willing to risk their lives in the hope of securing one or two valuable horses; they were a gang of bandits seeking an even richer reward. As I galloped past a grove of gnarled ash trees rooted in a sheltered hollow, six wild men mounted on ponies burst out from their cover to block my path. My speeding mare threw herself back on her haunches to avoid a collision and within seconds I found myself surrounded.

I wheeled the mare around, looking for help, but quickly realized that this ambush had been carefully planned. The smug grins on the faces of the surrounding horsemen confirmed this.

‘They will not see us, lady. We are hidden by the hill, so best to come quietly.’

The speaker’s face was disguised with dark, caked mud and he wore a dented metal sallet on his head, its visor pushed up. A camouflage spray of myrtle leaves tied over the helmet shadowed his eyes so that he resembled the evil green man depicted in church carvings. His cocky smile revealed rotting teeth. Despite my fear I felt a fierce surge of anger.

‘I do not know who you are, villain, but I am a Neville and Nevilles do not “come quietly”,’ I said, and throwing back my head, echoed the family warcry I had heard so recently on my brothers’ lips: ‘À Neville! Cuthbert, to me!’

The evil green man spoke sharply to his companions and a large, callused hand was clamped over my mouth from behind me. At the same time another man snatched the reins from my hands as yet another pulled my arms back and wound a cord around my wrists, tying them tightly together.

‘We ride!’ shouted the leader and all at once I found myself desperately struggling to remain in the saddle as, corralled in the midst of their horses, my mare was forced to bound clumsily up the steep side of the hollow. But once I had caught my breath and clamped my thighs to my horse’s sides, I realized that although my hands were tied my mouth was still free and I took advantage of the fact, renewing my screams for help, albeit in shrieks and jerks from my mare’s hunched leaps. A loud oath came from the leader and as soon as we reached flatter ground he held up his hand for a halt. I continued shouting while he kicked his horse up to mine, scrabbled in the front of his battered gambeson and finally pulled out a filthy kerchief.

‘For a well-born lady you screech like a fishwife but this should shut you up,’ he growled and retaliated by spitting into the kerchief before using it to gag my screams.

I twisted my head this way and that but without the use of my hands I was unable to prevent him pulling the damp, stinking cloth between my teeth and tying it at the back. My shouts were reduced to muffled moans and then silenced altogether as I retched at the foul taste on my tongue.

‘Calm down, my lady,’ the man sneered, ‘or I will have to throw you over my pommel and that will make a very painful ride.’

Forced to inhale through my nose, my eyes bulged as I fought to draw the air into my lungs. I knew I would have to stop struggling if I was to keep breathing and so although I glared daggers at him, I stopped grunting and wriggling.

His lip curled in contempt. ‘That is better. Right – onwards, comrades – to the forest!’

He set off again at a fast pace but as we began to climb more steadily on a drover’s track, I found it easier to stay in the saddle. And now I knew where we were headed – to Hamsterley Forest on the northern side of the dale. I also knew that if we got there the chances of my being rescued were minimal. It was ancient forest, deep and impenetrable. Even if a hue and cry were raised, it would be hours before the bloodhounds found my trail and beyond the forest the terrain was full of hidden ravines which I did not doubt that the reivers would know intimately. By using them as cover they could hustle me over the River Tyne and beyond Hadrian’s Wall before a search party got near. I tried to look back for any sign of help but very nearly fell off in the attempt and gave up in favour of staying on my horse.

‘Looking for a knight in shining armour, lady?’ lisped the reiver leading my mare. Under the brim of his ancient kettle helmet were bloodshot eyes, a wrinkled brown face, and a toothless grin. He looked about seventy, but with only rough sackcloth for a saddle he stuck to his steed like a limpet. ‘There’s none of their like around here,’ he went on. ‘But dinnae worry, all we want is a good price for your horse and a queen’s ransom for you. And mebbe you might dance for us a bit, eh? He-he!’ He found this notion so amusing that he made himself cough and splutter.

That use of the word ‘dance’ had a sinister ring to it and I wanted to smack the grin off his face, but all I could do was stick out my chin and fix my eyes on my mare’s forelock, willing her to avoid all hazards, since I could not steer her.

Another loud stream of oaths from the leader silenced the bearded man’s mirth but they were not aimed at him. On the crest of the hill, our path was crossed by a drove-road that ran from west to east, and that very knight-errant I had been mocked for seeking was approaching the junction, closely followed by a dozen men-at-arms. I could not believe my eyes. The chances of meeting a fully armoured knight and his retinue on a drover’s path in any season were almost nil, yet there he was. As soon as he sighted the reivers he drew his sword, obviously as surprised to see them as they were to see him.

The green man did not hesitate. He knew when the odds were stacked against him. ‘Run for it, lads,’ he yelled, clapping his heels to his pony’s sides. ‘Every man for himself. Dump the loot.’

In different circumstances I might have been offended by being described as ‘loot’ but at that moment there was pandemonium as my captors galloped away in all directions and my mare plunged off the path into the maze of rocks, lose scree and whin that formed the terrain of this high fell country. Horses are herd animals and naturally follow their leader but which other horse to follow my mare did not know and I could not help her, being gagged and tied, so she skidded and skittered and plunged and it was only a matter of time before she lost her footing and fell, tossing me off into the middle of a patch of gorse, which luckily broke my fall.

Having all the air knocked out of your lungs when wearing a gag creates a desperate situation. For several long minutes I wheezed and coughed and feared I might lose consciousness but eventually I managed to force enough air into my deflated lungs to pay attention to my plight. All around me I could hear the cursing of men and the clatter of stones as even the reivers’ agile dale-trotters tripped and slithered over the treacherous ground. My own mare lay a few yards off, hooves thrashing as she writhed and twisted, trying to get to her feet. When she finally managed it she stood on three legs, her sides heaving. There was no doubt she was lame; perhaps her leg was broken. Even if I could have caught her she was no longer rideable and, anyway, I doubted if I could mount without the use of my hands.

I set about trying to extract myself from the gorse but my skirts had become entangled and sharp prickles pierced my clothes and scratched me painfully. When I stopped struggling to take a rest I noticed that the sound of the chase had diminished and the cries of birds were once more audible in the air. A few loose stones rattled close by and I felt a presence looming over me. Tipping my head back I found myself staring up at a richly trapped horse with a knight in armour on its back. Clearly the fighting was over because he had removed his helmet. Thick, neatly cut flaxen hair framed a suntanned face distinguished by a high brow, a straight nose and a pair of piercing grey eyes. He bowed politely from his saddle.

From my prone position almost anyone would have looked imposing but when he dismounted, making little of the encumbrance of steel-plate, I saw that he was tall and broad-shouldered, the belt on his jupon lying low on slim hips; but my attention was caught by the jupon itself: blood-red and cross-slashed by a white saltire cross, at its centre a black bull’s head. The X cross and the black bull were devices I knew. I did not recognize his face but this could only be a Neville knight.

Incongruously, he bowed. ‘God save you, my lady, are you hurt?’

My temper flared. Manners were one thing, I thought, but was he blind? Could he not see that I was gagged and tied? He must have seen the anger blaze in my eyes for he quickly bent and untied the filthy kerchief, pulling it from my mouth and gazing at it with distaste before throwing it away into the gorse. ‘That does not look pleasant,’ he said and beckoned to someone beyond my eye-line. ‘Bring a wine-skin, Tam,’ he ordered. ‘Lady Cicely needs a drink.’

My eyes widened. So he knew who I was, even though I wore no distinguishing badge. My heart missed a beat as he drew his dagger but he hastened to reassure me. ‘I will not harm you. It is to cut your bonds.’

With relief I felt my wrists fall apart and I was at last able to haul my skirt off the clutching bushes and clamber to my feet. I noticed several rips in my clothing where the gorse had done its damage but worse was the taste in my mouth, as if my tongue had been dragged through a midden. I stood gasping at clean air like a stranded fish and rubbing my chafed wrists.

Being taller than average I could meet Sir John’s enquiring gaze straight on. ‘I cannot thank you enough for your intervention, sir,’ I said, embarrassed that my voice emerged in a frog-like croak. I cleared my throat. ‘I was out hawking with my brothers and fleeing from one pack of reivers when another gang ambushed me. Did you catch any of them or see any of my hunting party?’

The knight ignored my questions. ‘Was it you or the horse they were after?’

I drew myself up. ‘One of them boasted that they would get a good price for the horse and a queen’s ransom for me.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that so? I heard you were soon to be a duchess but is not “queen” aiming a little too high?’

For a stranger he was far too knowledgeable. I was about to demand his name when the young squire Tam appeared at my side offering a wine-skin and suddenly the evil taste in my mouth was of vastly more importance. Murmuring thanks I sucked at it greedily, swilled the wine around my mouth and, abandoning good manners, turned away to spit it into the gorse.

The knight indicated my injured horse standing nearby, three-legged, her head drooping. ‘I believe you would hold your price, Lady Cicely, but I fear the same cannot be said of your mare.’

This was the second time he had used my name and title and I was becoming irritated. ‘You have the advantage of me. You seem to know who I am but I do not know you.’

His smile transformed him from merely good-looking to strikingly handsome. A complete set of even white teeth was seldom to be seen in a fighting man, which he so obviously was. ‘But you know I am a Neville from my jupon,’ he said, placing his hand over the black bull on his chest. ‘Sir John Neville of Brancepeth, brother to the Earl of Westmorland.’

‘Ah.’

It was a shamefully inadequate response but the revelation had given me a severe jolt. I had not shared the conversation in my mother’s solar for the past three years without hearing a great deal about the present Earl of Westmorland et al. Far from being rescued by a knight in shining armour, I may have escaped from the cauldron only to fall into the fire.

2

Weardale and Brancepeth Castle

Cicely

‘You appear disconcerted, Lady Cicely,’ said Sir John.

I made no response, merely staring at him, my mind filling with random memories and snippets of information. The Nevilles were an extremely large family and I was woefully ignorant of the undercurrents that steered the relationships within it.

‘As I see it, we have only one problem,’ Sir John went on, ignoring my bewilderment and addressing the immediate practicalities, ‘your horse cannot be ridden and my destrier is the only one strong enough to carry two people. So I hope you will accept a lift from me, unless of course you prefer to walk.’

I looked around. The knight’s retinue had been moderately successful; none appeared injured and two of my recent abductors now stood with their hands bound, the ropes tied to the panniers on either side of the sumpter horse which carried the knight’s baggage. One of them was the wizened man but I could not see the face of the other, nor could I see their ponies. Wherever the two captives were being taken, they were clearly going on foot. I had no intention of doing the same.

‘The last time I rode on the pommel of a knight’s saddle it was in front of my father,’ I said, ‘when I was seven.’

Sir John turned to the young man who had brought the wineskin. ‘Tam, get my bedroll and tie it over the front of my saddle. For the comfort of Lady Cicely.’

I had lost my hat in the fall and my unruly hair was loose, tumbling down my back and no doubt tangled with spikes of gorse. In my torn skirts and mud-stained riding huke, with my wild mass of auburn hair, I was conscious of looking more like a camp follower than a future duchess. I remarked pointedly, ‘If someone could find my hat in the gorse, it would prevent my hair blowing in Sir John’s face while we ride.’

As I had hoped, Tam glanced up from his task. ‘I will find it for you, my lady,’ he said with a shy smile. He did not wear a knight’s spurs and I guessed he was no more than twenty.

I smiled back and thanked him but Sir John frowned. ‘Make it quick, Tam. We must be going.’

This prompted me to ask the question uppermost in my mind. ‘And where are we going, Sir John?’

‘To Brancepeth of course,’ he replied tersely.

Brancepeth was Lord Westmorland’s castle, some twenty miles distant, on the road to Durham. It was not the answer I wanted to hear. ‘Surely Raby is more or less on the way?’ I pointed out.

He shook his head. ‘It is a detour and I must get to Brancepeth before nightfall. I will send a message with one of my men to let your mother know where you are.’

I forced a smile. ‘Thank you, Sir John. My mother will be relieved. I hope the present Countess of Westmorland will not object to accommodating a guest from Raby.’

Ignoring my remark he turned impatiently to inspect the squire’s efforts with the bedroll. ‘That will do, Tam. Now fetch Lady Cicely’s hat and let us be on our way. We will leave her injured horse here. Without doubt there will be a search party and they will find the mare.’

When Tam stirruped his hands to help me mount the destrier, Sir John looked surprised to see me settle myself astride the padded pommel, arranging my skirts modestly on either side of the horse’s withers. However he made no comment and swung himself quickly up behind me. The rest of his retinue fell into line, Tam leading the sumpter with the two prisoners attached. Since we could only progress at their walking pace I had to concur with my companion’s assertion that we would hardly reach Brancepeth castle by dusk.

In addition to the discomfort of riding on the pommel, I felt ill at ease at being thrown so close to this undeniably attractive man. Not since my father’s enthusiastic embraces during my childhood had I ever been physically so close to any male, even my brothers. It was impossible to avoid contact with him and I confess that I found it disturbingly exciting. Sir John remained silent behind me and, clinging to the mane of his big bay stallion as it sidled and pecked at the unaccustomed weight, I distracted myself by mentally analysing my situation. Brancepeth Castle was the seat of Ralph Neville, second Earl of Westmorland, and it should follow that I would be kindly treated there and returned as soon as possible to my home at Raby. But recent family history told me that this was far from certain.

At first sight the dispute between the Nevilles of Raby and the Nevilles of Brancepeth appeared to arise directly from my father’s death, but what was actually at the root of the family feud was my parents’ marriage. For both it had been a second marriage. My father had already sired seven children, and his first wife died giving birth to the eighth. I do not know what caused the death of my mother’s first husband, only that she was a widow at eighteen with two young daughters. And so there were already several infants in the nursery at Raby even before she and my father added another eleven children – theirs was undoubtedly a passionate love match. It would have been thirteen if twin boys had not sadly died within hours of their birth and almost taken our mother with them. I was the youngest of the family and I knew that the man whose saddle I now shared was my father’s grandson. The fact that I had never met him before was some indication of the distance of our relationship, even though as blood kin we should have had a close affinity. Paradoxically and through no fault of our own, we did not.

Although he had been dead for seven years, I still thought of my father as a giant among men, in every sense of the word. He had, indeed, been extremely tall – a head taller than most of his fellow noblemen, a physical feature I had inherited, being as tall as most men and towering over many. He had also been considered clever, charming and ruthless, a skilled soldier and one of the most successful military and political tacticians of his generation. However, when it came to writing his will his tactics had been, let us say, questionable. The Westmorland title had perforce to follow the senior male line but, controversially, he left most of his property to his second wife, my mother. Therefore while Sir John’s older brother Ralph, the second Earl of Westmorland, held and resided at Brancepeth Castle, my mother held the three other Neville palaces, Raby and two vast castles in Yorkshire, together with all their manors and other sources of revenue. As may be imagined, this arrangement had not gone down well with the Nevilles of Brancepeth, who resented what they called blatant favouritism and frequently found ways to express their resentment and press home their claim to a greater legacy. My fear was that I might be used as a tool to further their cause.

After plodding in silence across high moorland tracks for a couple of hours, passing several well-fortified farms, we dropped down into a dale where a small but sturdy castle stood sentinel over a bridge spanning a fast-flowing river. The crossing was guarded by a posse of men-at-arms, who saluted Sir John. As we rode through, one of them shouted a bawdy comment about the knight’s ‘saddle-doxy’ which Sir John studiously ignored but which had the effect of breaking the tense silence that had developed between us.

‘I must apologize for the guards’ uncouth manners, my lady,’ he said when out of their earshot. ‘They do not recognize you or they would not dare.’

‘Whose men are they?’ I asked. ‘And what castle is this?’

‘It is Witton Castle, held by Sir Ralph Eure, a tenant of my brother the earl. We have just crossed the River Wear.’

‘Only half way to Brancepeth then?’ I glanced at the western sky, where clouds were already blushing faintly pink.

I could not see Sir John’s face but I felt him tense in the saddle. ‘Yes, we make slow progress – too slow for my liking.’ He turned to beckon the squire forward. ‘Take the reivers to the captain at the Witton guardhouse, Tam. Sir Ralph can keep them in his prison until the session judge comes to Durham. We will water the horses while you sort it out.’

I watched the old reiver, the wizened man who had earlier held the reins of my mare, as he stumbled away behind the sumpter horse. No longer grinning, he now looked weary and desperate. I thought he would be grateful to sit down, even in a stinking dungeon, and very nearly summoned a pang of sympathy, until I remembered his sinister remark about me doing a dance. There was no doubt in my mind that he would have had no sympathy for me had I been subjected to whatever pain or humiliation ‘dance’ was a euphemism for. At least I had escaped the ‘dance’, whatever the unknown future I was riding into might have in store.

Presently we joined a well-trodden highway where a milestone indicated seven miles to the city of Durham, and I knew that we were nearing Brancepeth. This was mining country and the high moor above the road to the north was peppered with numerous adits, holes that had been opened into the hillside, and a web of paths leading between them, worn by the feet of miners and the wheels of the carts. They wove a pattern across the winter-brown grass of the slopes down to the river where the coal was brought for transport to the coast. I knew that these mines were an important source of income to the Brancepeth estate; without them the earl would have been even more impoverished than he claimed to be.

Before the end of our journey I became sleepy and, despite my best efforts, must have slumped back against my companion who punctiliously nudged me upright again. ‘Take care you do not slumber, my lady, in case you fall from the horse,’ he said. ‘It is not far now.’

‘Talk to me then,’ I urged irritably. ‘Tell me why you happened to be riding that drover’s track when you rescued me from the reivers.’

I thought he was going to maintain his stubborn silence because there was a lengthy pause before he launched into his reply. ‘The young man, Tam, who found your hat, is the Clifford heir and a ward of the earl’s. We had been attending a Halmote – a manor court – at Brough Castle and, if you want the truth, we always take the high route over the moors because that way we avoid crossing Raby lands. Surely you must realize that the sight of your home is like a red rag to the Nevilles of Brancepeth.’

Despite the grim tone of his remark I smiled, thinking of the black bull badge on his chest. ‘A red rag to a bull; yes, I see.’

‘No!’ His voice was angry. ‘I doubt if you do see, Lady Cicely. My brother is the second Earl of Westmorland – your father’s heir. Yet he has been deprived of the heir’s rightful inheritance. He should have tenure of the entire legacy of Westmorland – all its lands and all its castles. All of them – and the income they provide. And it should be up to him as their lord how those lands and castles are occupied and stewarded. Instead he was left only one seat – Brancepeth – and not even enough manors to provide his immediate family with homes and livelihoods. He and his dependents have been slighted and disinherited by your overweening, greedy mother.’

Now it was my turn to be angry. True, my mother was proud and sometimes haughty but she was a great lady of royal blood, a granddaughter of King Edward the Third, and I could not brook her being held in contempt. ‘My mother has served the honour of Westmorland more profitably than any of the present earl’s family and it is hardly chivalrous to speak thus of a great lady, Sir John.’ I laid particular stress on the ‘sir’.

‘Which is why it is better if we do not speak at all,’ the knight snapped back.

After this a heavy silence prevailed once more until we came within sight of our destination. I knew the history of Brancepeth from my childhood lessons. An advantageous union three hundred years ago had brought the manor and its castle into the Neville family when Geoffrey de Neville, grandson of William of Normandy’s Admiral of the Fleet, had married Emma, the heiress of Bertram Bulmer of Brancepeth. Heraldic wordplay on the Bulmer name had brought the black bull device into the Neville crest. It was an alliance which had marked the start of Neville dominance over the sprawling County Palatine of Durham. Many times had the warlike Prince Bishops of Durham taken up arms to defend the English border against the Scots, but bishops came and went by papal appointment, whereas succeeding generations of Nevilles had dug their roots deep into the denes and dales, establishing themselves among the clutch of great marcher clans on which successive kings of England relied to defend the northern fringes of their realm.

Brancepeth was a four-square fortress; its thirty-foot-high curtain enclosed a hall, chapel and bailey with a sturdy tower at each corner and a formidable gatehouse protected by stout barbicans. Defensively perched on the edge of a steep-sided dene or gorge, through which a fast stream flowed, its ochre-coloured stone was blackened by soot from burning the coal mined on its demesne and it loomed dark and grim in the deepening twilight. We approached through a closed and quiet village, where I could picture the villeins clustered around their hearths, filling their bellies with their evening meal. My own stomach rumbled at the thought. Only a few spluttering torches lit our way under the gatehouse into a flagged courtyard where a flight of steps led to the arched entrance of the great hall. There was a loud rattle of chains as the drawbridge was raised behind us; a sinister sound in the gathering gloom.

Sir John dismounted and helped me to do so, speaking to an eager page who had rushed forward to hold his stirrup. ‘Tell the countess there is a guest. Lady Cicely Neville. I will bring her to the hall.’

As the page hurried away up the steps I saw a mop-headed little boy wriggle from the clutches of his nursemaid and scurry towards us, ducking and weaving through the confusion of horses and men, his little face bright with curiosity.

‘You have brought a visitor, Uncle,’ he said in a high, sibilant voice. ‘Who is she?’

With a frisson of pleasure, despite myself, I saw the knight’s transforming smile once more as he greeted the boy with an affectionate cuff on the shoulder and a mild rebuke. ‘Where are your manners, Jack? Make your best bow to your kinswoman Lady Cicely Neville, and then you may take my helmet to the armoury.’

Pink-faced, the boy bent his knee and bowed his head to me, shyly keeping his eyes lowered. I guessed he must be the heir of Westmorland, whose birth I remembered being discussed with some surprise at Raby – surprise because it demonstrated that the earl, commonly described as a cripple, was not entirely disabled. The little boy proudly took the proffered helmet and carried it away, staggering slightly under its weight, and Sir John and I both watched his progress. He was closely followed by Tam Clifford leading the laden sumpter and the knight’s weary warhorse to the stable, a long timber structure built against the high perimeter wall.

All around us was clatter and chatter as the retinue dismounted and began leading their horses away. Reverting once more to cool courtesy, Sir John indicated the narrow stone staircase which hugged the hall wall. A pair of helmeted halberdiers guarded the iron-bound oak doors that stood open at the top. ‘Will you enter, my lady?’

His stern expression deterred any thought of refusal but as I ascended I felt the first stirrings of alarm, wondering what I would find within and when I would ever descend. Sir John’s armoured feet rang threateningly close behind me on the stair. We passed through the iron-bound doors into an ante-room, then up a shorter and wider stone stairway, through a carved wooden screen into a long, high-beamed hall warmed by two blazing fires, one on the dais at the far end and another under a carved hood in the body of the hall. As we entered, a lady dressed in a crimson fur-trimmed gown and a cream linen wimple emerged from a privy door onto the dais. A deep frown creased her brow and her thin mouth was set in a downward curve. She made no move to greet us.

Apart from a servant tending the fires the three of us were alone in the large room. If a meal had already been served there was no sign of it and the trestles had been cleared. Two cushioned chairs were set near each hearth and various wooden coffers and benches lined the walls, which were hung with dusty tapestries depicting aspects of the chase. Fading light seeped through high-set shuttered windows and guttering torches filled the room with sinister shadows. My anxious gaze met no reassurance.

His hand firmly on my elbow, Sir John drew me towards the dais and the frowning lady, who glared down at me. ‘Lady Cicely, may I present my sister-in-law, Lady Elizabeth, Countess of Westmorland.’ While I made an equal’s curtsy he turned to her. ‘This is Lady Cicely Neville of Raby, sister. She was the unfortunate victim of reivers who attacked her hawking party out on the moor. I was obliged to come to her aid.’

Lady Elizabeth voiced none of the customary words of greeting. ‘But were you obliged to bring her here, Sir John?’ she asked, blue eyes frosty in the tight frame of her wimple. ‘She is hardly welcome.’

Stung by this insult I protested. ‘Believe me, Lady Westmorland, I would have been more than happy to return immediately to Raby but this gallant knight insisted we come first to Brancepeth.’ My use of the term ‘gallant knight’ was laced with irony.

‘I am astonished to learn that your mother allowed you to venture on to the moors at all.’ Lady Elizabeth’s tone was as sharp as my own. ‘I should have thought the dowager countess would be more protective of her precious duchess-to-be.’

I freely admit that I am quick-tempered and I showed it then. ‘You seem determined to offer me nothing but scorn, my lady, but at least I am here to defend myself. I consider it churlish to slight my mother when she is not.’

The countess seemed to gather herself up, like a goaded cat, her whole body shaking with repressed rage. ‘Churlish! It is she who is churlish in the extreme and remains so while she holds lands and castles that are my lord’s by right. There is no welcome for one of Joan Beaufort’s children under this roof while she lives under a roof that is legally his and withholds from him lands and revenues that should be his also.’

She swept down from the dais and stalked past me to the great hearth with the carved hood where she seated herself in one of the two chairs placed there. I started to follow, fulminating. I was only vaguely familiar with the terms of my father’s will but I did know that commissions of inquiry in both London and Durham had confirmed its legacies and settled its terms.

I turned angrily on Sir John. ‘Since I am declared unwelcome I should be given the courtesy of a horse and an escort and allowed to leave. Or am I, in fact, a hostage, sir?’

The knight denied me eye contact and shrugged. A squire had entered the hall and began removing Sir John’s armour, kneeling to unbuckle the greaves from his shins. ‘I have sent word to Raby that you are here,’ Sir John said. ‘We must wait and see how your family construes the situation.’

‘I imagine their “construing” will depend on the content of the message you have sent,’ I retorted.

As the corselet was lifted from his shoulders a faint smile flickered across the knight’s face and was gone. ‘Indeed it will, Lady Cicely. To be precise then, I have told the dowager countess that you are free to leave as soon as we hear that the castles of Middleham and Sherriff Hutton have been handed over to my brother’s agents.’

These words fell between us with the impact of a cannon shot. Middleham and Sherriff Hutton were the two vast Neville estates in Yorkshire, the original foundation of the family’s assets. Lady Westmorland gave a little crow of delight; her hand flew to her mouth and her eyes began to glitter with gleeful excitement.

I exploded with fury. ‘So this is your idea of chivalry, Sir John! This is how you help a lady in distress? I think your fellow knights would call it dishonorable extortion.’

He met my anger impassively, his expression veiled. ‘We shall see,’ he said coolly. ‘Some might say that extortion has been practiced on me and mine, rather than by me.’

I fell silent, still hostile but bereft of words. By now the industrious squire had removed all elements of the knight’s armour and gathered them up for removal and cleaning. Sir John stood in his doublet and hose but made no less an imposing figure, tall and lean with well-muscled shoulders and the powerful thighs of a man who could control a war stallion through day-long combat. He also had the air of one embarking on a venture with some relish, anticipating the challenge ahead. The squire returned with soft leather shoes and a blue, fur-lined gown which he proceeded to help Sir John put on.

Eventually I broke in with a request. ‘Perhaps the next time you send anyone to Raby they would inquire after my bodyguard. When last I saw him he was tackling a band of cut-throat reivers single-handed. I would be grateful to hear how he fared.’

Lady Westmorland’s response to this cut the air like a knife. ‘You show great concern for a servant, Lady Cicely. I wonder what my cousin would think.’

At first I did not follow her train of thought. ‘Your cousin? Oh, do you mean the Duke of York?’

The countess nodded. ‘Yes, your betrothed. Perhaps you did not know that I am Hotspur’s daughter and my mother was a Mortimer, like his. I wonder how happy his grace would be to hear you so excessively concerned for your bodyguard.’

I resented her implication. ‘Of course I am concerned!’ I cried. ‘It is my brother Cuthbert I speak of. I suppose I may show concern for a brother without offending against any code of conduct?’

Lady Westmorland’s lip curled. ‘Ah – the late earl’s unfortunate by-blow.’

‘Unfortunate!’ I echoed, incensed. ‘I am sure that even Sir John would allow that, illegitimate or not, Sir Cuthbert of Middleham is one of the finest knights on the Western March.’

I swung round to seek the knight’s endorsement but my use of Cuddy’s full name had touched a raw nerve in the countess. ‘Marie! Not just a by-blow but a Middleham by-blow. He certainly spread himself far and wide, your father.’

‘Enough!’ Sir John’s face had darkened; his grey eyes were narrow beneath knitted brows. ‘Let us speak no more of such things. Is there no refreshment for returning travellers, my lady? I am starving!’

The countess rose from her chair, her expression sulky, but she snapped her fingers at the servant who had been stoking the fires. ‘Go, boy! Fetch food and wine for Sir John.’

‘And for Lady Cicely,’ added her brother-in-law as an afterthought. ‘She will also need a bed somewhere safe, sister. I am sure that can be arranged.’

He had fixed the countess with a steely gaze and she held it for several seconds as if tempted to deny him but then nodded briefly and made for the exit to attend to his request. I wondered why she had no lower-ranked female companion to whom she could delegate such a task but supposed that none could stomach her sour disposition. Certainly I had no desire to be beholden to such an unpleasant hostess but although my stomach was rumbling with hunger I needed other bodily relief more urgently. As she passed by me I adopted a placatory tone.

‘Lady Westmorland, I have been riding since morning and would be grateful for the use of a guarderobe.’

I have an audible voice, low and clear, but to my consternation the countess made no acknowledgement and disappeared under the screen arch in a swirl of skirts. I felt my cheeks burn.

Sir John gave an apologetic cough. ‘My sister-in-law cannot have heard you. I will summon a female servant to show you the way,’ he said. ‘There will be refreshments when you return.’

Of necessity there is always a guarderobe or latrine off every great hall but I was not shown to one so close by. Perhaps being mainly for the use of visiting knights and their retinues it was not considered suitable for ladies. Instead a hatchet-faced serving wench led me two flights up a spiral stair built into the thickness of the wall, which ended in a small tower chamber bare of furniture but with a small guarderobe leading off it. Although I was used to an upholstered seat rather than cold wood, at least I could not complain about the latrine’s cleanliness. After making use of it I spent a few minutes attempting to remove the gorse twigs and prickles still stubbornly attached to my clothes and hair, observed with dumb curiosity by the servant, who made no attempt to help.

On my return to the hall I encountered an influx of young men, all seating themselves noisily at a newly erected and cloth-covered trestle-table. Among them I recognized Tam and the squire who had removed Sir John’s armour. Two pages stood by with bowls and napkins for hand-washing. There was no sign of Lady Westmorland but Sir John had been joined at the dais fire by a thin, pale-faced individual well wrapped in fur-lined robes and seated in a curiously constructed chair equipped with a foot-rest and slots for carrying-poles. I approached them hesitantly, unsure of my welcome.

‘Ah, here is our visitor,’ said Sir John, catching sight of me and beckoning me onto the dais. ‘Lady Cicely, allow me to present my brother Ralph, Earl of Westmorland.’

‘My lord of Westmorland.’ I made the required acknowledgement with little enthusiasm in either voice or curtsy.

‘Well, there is no disputing your Neville breeding, my lady,’ responded the earl, showing more amiability than his wife. ‘You are nearly as tall as John here.’

‘She is Lady Joan’s youngest,’ remarked Sir John.

His brother glanced at him sharply. ‘The Beaufort’s youngest?’ he repeated. ‘I thought that one had married the Duke of York.’ He made a seated bow in my direction. ‘You must forgive me for not rising, your grace. I am unable to trust my legs.’

‘She is not “your grace” yet, brother. That is a betrothal ring on her finger, not a wedding band.’

I glanced down at my right hand, where the big polished cabochon diamond glinted even in the gloom of the ill-lit hall. ‘I am not yet married, my lord, no. But I am surprised to hear Sir John call me a visitor. I believe hostage would be a more accurate term.’

‘Hostage?’ Lord Westmorland looked up at his brother, one eyebrow raised. ‘What does she mean, John?’

The knight shrugged. ‘I have sent word to her mother that she will be returned to Raby only when Middleham and Sherriff Hutton are yours.’

His brother held his gaze for several seconds, blinking slowly, before bursting into delighted laughter. ‘Ha! She is right, she is a hostage. I do not know how you came by her, John, but you have clearly made good use of your windfall. You are the pillar of my house, brother, indeed you are.’

This was too much for me. I cut through his offensive laughter with a voice like flint. ‘I would have expected honourable treatment from a man of nobility, my lord! But clearly I am mistaken.’

The earl reduced his mirth to a smile. ‘I see no dishonour in demanding ransom for a noble prisoner, Lady Cicely, and you are certainly that. Daughter of an earl, betrothed to a duke – and what do they call you in these parts? The “Rose of Raby”, do they not? Your mother’s favourite child. Oh yes, the dowager will give much to see you back safely under her wing. I believe I can look forward to taking possession of my rightful inheritance very soon.’

This mocking speech had brought me close to tears but I forced them back. I knew enough about the senior branch of the Nevilles to appreciate that life had not been kind to them. The stories of the present earl’s childhood accident – a fall from a horse which had weakened his back and gradually robbed him of the use of his legs – and the unfortunate death of both his parents within a year of each other were well known in the north-country, as was the vast discrepancy between the grand-paternal legacies to him and those to my mother. Also, not only had my father left the bulk of his estates to our side of the family, while enjoying a flush of royal favour in his later years he had secured marriages and titles of much higher rank for his second family than his first and the best match of all had been won for me. Richard, Duke of York was the richest nobleman in England and, having reached his majority in September of the previous year, had spent the intervening months establishing his claim not only to the York estates but also to those of his cousin Edmund, Earl of March, his mother’s brother, who had died without issue at about the same time as my father. Ever since I had known him, Richard had been looking forward with a fervent appetite to petitioning parliament for his vast inheritance and, if I am honest, I shared his eagerness, having desires and ambitions of my own. In that respect I was my father’s daughter and he had made a perfect match, for Richard of York was no prouder or more ambitious than Cicely Neville.

What the Brancepeth branch of the family did not know – at least I certainly hoped they did not – was that the day was fast approaching when Richard of York would come to Raby to claim me as his bride and it would be unfortunate to say the least if, when he arrived, I was not there to marry him. I could imagine the heated debate that would take place between my mother and those of my brothers who were available; the urgent necessity of my return balanced against their united determination not to cede one stone or acre of their inheritance to the other side of the family. I would doubtless have found it funny if the situation did not make me feel like a scrap of meat being fought over by snarling dogs.

3

Raby Castle

Cuthbert

My half-brother Hal paced the floor of Countess Joan’s salon, his face displaying anger and fatigue in equal measure. He had ridden through the night from his castle at Penrith to attend this family summit meeting, gathered twenty-four hours after Cicely had vanished off the moor and twelve since the ransom note had been received from Brancepeth.

‘You have indulged the girl too much, my lady mother, and this is the result.’

Only Hal dared to address the majestic Dowager Countess of Westmorland in such an admonitory tone. Her eldest son, the first of the thirteen children she had borne to the late earl, he was the only one to whom she deferred because he had inherited our father’s air of authority, though not his devastating charm or extreme height. Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury, was known in the family as Hal for reasons that went back to the establishment of the Lancastrian dynasty at the turn of the century. Having been baptized in honour of King Richard the Second, who had granted my father both the earldom of Westmorland and the marriage to his cousin, Joan Beaufort, the name became an embarrassment when Henry of Lancaster forced King Richard to abdicate in his favour – and so the baby Richard Neville quickly became known as Henry instead, or Hal for short. However, by the time he came of age, the name Richard was no longer out of favour and he used it officially, but within the family Hal had stuck.

Nicknames seemed to haunt Hal though. At court, where he served on the king’s council, I had heard him called Prudence behind his back, because of his strategic and cautious approach to everything. It was my guess that had Hal been at Raby, Cicely would never have been allowed out on the moor to hunt so close to the date of her wedding.

Now his attitude was starkly pragmatic. ‘If Richard of York hears of this he will repudiate the marriage and then Cicely might as well go straight to the nearest convent. She will be damaged goods.’

Seated in her gilded chair beneath a baronial canopy embroidered with the Beaufort portcullis crest, the dowager countess looked weary and distracted, but she retained her composure in the face of her son’s anger. ‘None of our retainers will dare to breathe a word of it, even if they become aware of Cicely’s precarious situation,’ she said. ‘York will never learn of it as long as we can get her back before his harbingers arrive and that cannot be for two more days at least. What is your plan to gain her release, Hal?’

Her son gave an exasperated sigh and let his gaze sweep the assembled company. ‘You let her leave the castle, mother, and Will and Ned let her ride into the arms of reivers. None of you seems to have covered yourself in glory over the matter and now you call me in and expect me to wave a magic wand and sort out the mess. Well, it will not be that easy.’

I suppose I should have been grateful that I was excluded from his list of blame but I knew that did not exempt me from responsibility; rather it indicated that Hal did not recognize my right to be in the room, for Lord Salisbury was a stickler for rank and protocol. I was baseborn and in his eyes a bastard could never be considered of rank, even one who had been accepted into his family household as a child, was reared with his brothers, and had earned the accolade of knighthood during a campaign on the Western March toward Scotland, of which he was Lord Warden. Although we were brothers, Hal Neville and I were not exactly friends.

Anyway I did not escape entirely.

‘It was Cuthbert who told her to ride for Raby.’ This helpful remark came from Ned, the brother closest to Cicely in age and another whom I did not count among my supporters. ‘Otherwise she would not have become separated from the rest of us.’

‘Cuddy was obeying orders,’ Will Neville cut in, the only one of my brothers who used Cicely’s nickname for me, a man on whom I could always rely to take my part. ‘Do not try and blame him for our mistakes. The reivers should never have got so near us. We should have kept scouts out all the time, not called them in when the hunting started.’

‘Dogs cannot flush out birds while scouts are tramping all over the moor,’ protested Ned. ‘There would be nothing there to hunt.’

‘Oh stop bickering!’ cried the countess, fixing Ned with pale-blue eyes narrowed and glittering with unshed tears. ‘The whole world knows that Cuthbert would die for Cicely. He is as distressed as any of us by her perilous position. Nor can we lay all the blame on Sir John Neville because it was he who rescued Cicely from the reivers. Had he not, her fate might have been even worse. No – if we are fixing blame we need look no further than the man who unfortunately bears the title your father worked so hard to achieve.’

Countess Joan used an exquisite lace kerchief to dab her cheek where a single tear had escaped her control.

‘You are right sans doubte, Madame ma mère.’

Young Ned had pretentions of grandeur and often used outdated Anglo-French phrases in order to stress the ancient Neville connection with the conquering Normans who had subdued England four hundred years ago. The rest of us were content to use English, the only language commonly understood and spoken by everyone in the north.

‘The devil twists a body which contains a twisted mind,’ Ned persisted. ‘We should attack Brancepeth with all force before that son of Beelzebub takes it into his warped mind to send a ransom demand to Richard of York. That would ruin Proud Cis’s prospects for certain!’ Despite his call for instant military attrition, Ned also sounded positively gleeful at the idea of Cicely being rejected by her wealthy bridegroom.

Will was indignant. ‘Neville cross swords with Neville? No! That is a recipe for disaster. Besides, Ned, there is no reason why anyone should have a warped mind simply because his body is not perfect, or vice versa. My Jane may be feeble-brained, but she is the most kind and loving of females.’

Will’s wife was Jane Fauconberg who, when she married him at sixteen, had literally been a childlike bride with the mind of a girl of six. Nevertheless she had brought him, an otherwise impecunious and untitled younger son, the extensive Barony of Fauconberg. Those who objected that the marriage was distastefully mercenary and wholly against nature were confounded by the affection and care Will displayed towards his spouse and her clear love for him. Love had been rewarded, and their marriage was confirmed as legal and consummated when she recently became pregnant with their first child at the start of the year. Needless to say, Will was hoping for a healthy boy to inherit the barony, having already proved his own ability to father sons by siring two with his resident mistress.

Ned was scornful. ‘You are as soft in the head as your wife, Will,’ he sneered. ‘Anyway, I say attack is the only option – preferably today.’

I waited to see which way Hal would jump. Surprisingly, for a man of the sword, he sided with Will and his mother. ‘I do not agree,’ he said firmly, turning his back on Ned’s angry glare. ‘We do not have to fear for Cicely’s honour or her safety. Westmorland and his brothers may be thorns in our side but they are not the monsters you paint them. It is our sister’s reputation we must protect. Richard of York will be keenly aware, as I am, that a young girl who has not been permanently under the protection of her mother or some other responsible female can be considered damaged goods. If he perceives Cicely’s abduction as a way to free himself from his obligation to marry her, the king’s council would support him because they are looking to strengthen England’s crucial alliance with Burgundy. A marriage between a scion of Burgundy and an English royal duke would re-point its masonry.’

He moved nearer to the countess’s canopied chair and knelt down before her in the guise of an earnest appellant. ‘We cannot allow that to happen, my lady mother. Although I know you remain sensitive in the matter, I think we should appeal to Eleanor to intervene. She must surely have considerable influence with Lord and Lady Westmorland.’

Lady Joan’s face set in an icy stare and her knuckles grew white on the arms of her chair. Strictly speaking, she was no longer required to wear mourning for her late husband but, by payment of a hefty sum to the royal exchequer, she had obtained permission to remain unmarried and she still favoured widow’s weeds. In her gleaming black minerva-trimmed gown, relieved only by the high neck of her white linen kirtle and veil, she resembled an affronted abbess about to address an offending novice.

‘No, my lord, under no circumstances! Eleanor made her bed with Percy and she must lie in it. I have nothing to say to her.’

Eleanor Neville, the eldest daughter, had eloped at sixteen with one of the Raby henchmen esquires, to be married by a hermit-priest in his cell deep in the Northumbrian borderlands. In a romantic turn of events it transpired that the apparently humble squire was, in fact, Henry Percy, heir to the earldom of Northumberland, who had been living incognito ever since his father and grandfather had forfeited their titles and estates by rebelling against the first Lancastrian king, Henry IV. Young Percy had wooed and won his lady in a fashion which might have thrilled a troubadour but had horrified and offended Lady Joan, who had never forgiven Eleanor, notwithstanding her chosen swain proving to have a status equal to her own. Family pride had induced the countess to intercede with her nephew, the newly crowned King Henry V, to get the young earl reinstated, so that her daughter could at least obtain the rank to which her birth entitled her, but the unforgiving dowager had never again set eyes on her runaway daughter, nor on the seven grandchildren Eleanor had provided her with.

Now she reinforced her objection. ‘Besides, as I understand it there is little love lost between Lord Northumberland and his sister, the present Lady Westmorland. She too disliked the manner of his marriage. I doubt if they communicate.’

Salisbury rose from his knees and stepped back speechless, merely shrugging his shoulders with a sigh.

‘So much for family loyalty,’ commented Ned with a grin. He made a sketchy bow in the direction of his mother’s chair. ‘If that is the best we can do I will take my leave. Cicely had better take her future into her own hands for it is apparent that no one here is going to bend over backwards to help her.’ He tossed a withering glance in my direction. ‘Least of all her much-vaunted champion, Cuthbert.’

I bit back a retort as the countess rose, indicating that as far as she was concerned the meeting was over. ‘At least we can pray. I shall be in the chapel and do not wish to be disturbed unless there is an emergency,’ she said, sweeping her dark skirts around her feet and heading towards her privy door, trailing a drifting fragrance of attar of roses in the air and causing an ornate heraldic banner to billow on the wall. The banner quartered the red rose of Lancaster with the Beaufort portcullis and was bordered in blue and white; her own personal standard.

Lady Joan made a small gesture as she passed me, indicating that I should follow her out but before closing the door behind us I heard Ned remark dryly, ‘Praying is all she will do. There will be no property concessions, that much is certain.’

The private chapel at Raby was a small gem. Intended only for the use of the Neville family and their distinguished guests, it had been built by the old earl’s father, but Ralph Neville himself had commissioned the colourful frescos on the walls which celebrated the family’s rise to power. On an azure sea sailed the three-masted ship from which Admiral de Neuville had commanded the fleet which brought Duke William’s force from Normandy to invade England; beside that a scene of knights and archers in close combat depicted the famous Battle of Neville’s Cross, when the Scottish king had been taken prisoner on the moors outside Durham; and finally there were scenes showing masons working on the soaring walls of Raby castle, confirming the establishment of the Nevilles among the premier barons of England. At the chancel end of the nave stood a beautiful rood screen carved from Ancaster alabaster and adorned with images of local English saints especially revered by the family; St Cuthbert, St Hilda, St Aidan and St Godric.

Lady Joan led me down the nave and paused by the screen. ‘You were named for St Cuthbert,’ she reminded me, ‘but my lord’s favoured saint was this one, Godric the crusader.’ She laid her hand on a fold of the saint’s stone robe. ‘A few weeks before your father died he brought me here and, despite his pain, he managed to kneel before this statue, though his wounded leg stuck out like a broken branch. Then he prayed aloud, asking the saint for guidance but I knew he was really consulting me.

‘“The surgeons want to cut off my leg,” he said. “You fought the devil, Godric. Standing waist high in the waters of the Wear, you battled the Anti-Christ for a day and a night. Tell me, God’s stalwart soldier, what must I do to combat Satan’s demons that fester in my leg?”’

The countess turned away from the screen and addressed me directly. ‘Ralph did not have the strength to continue and I finished the prayer for him. I begged St Godric to allow my lord to remain a true knight, proud and upright and to carry his sword in Christ’s name. Not to let him stand before God a cripple.’

‘Oh, my lady,’ I croaked, shocked to hear that word applied to the father I revered. ‘What did my father say?’

‘He understood. He smiled at me through his pain and said, “So be it. I am sixty-two. I have lived my life. I will go to the Creator as He made me, with every limb intact. It shall be as it shall be. May St Godric give me the strength to bear it.”’

I stared at her, bewildered. ‘You believe that cripples are the devil’s acolytes? That the present Lord Westmorland is a disciple of Satan?’ I asked.

‘Yes. But I believe he can be confounded by a miracle. There was no miracle for my lord Ralph but I will pray for one for Cicely.’

With that Lady Joan went to kneel down at the plush prie Dieu which had been specially placed for her in the chancel beneath an image of Our Lady. I hesitated, wondering why she had required my presence but all became clear when she began to pray aloud. ‘Holy Marie, Mother of God, be with my daughter Cicely in her hours of trial. Show her the way to escape her captors and let there be a strong hand to help her when your miracle has been fulfilled.’

I understood now. Lady Joan did not make specific requests of her vassals because she did not want to be disappointed if they failed to fulfil her wishes, but if they could be made to know those wishes indirectly then neither she nor they could lose face in the event of a failure. I was being given clear instructions to make it my business to act as spy and support for Cicely in any way I could, without involving the others. In other words, I was to perform the task that Lady Joan herself would have done, were she young and a man.

As her prayers dropped to a low murmur, I bowed to her apparently oblivious back and walked out of the chapel as quietly as my hard leather soles would allow. I never wore the soft-soled shoes affected by my brothers in their domestic life. It was part of my vow as a knight-champion that I remained constantly ready for action. To that end I carried a hidden blade, even when carrying arms was not permitted. All I had to do to begin my appointed task was collect my saddle-bags, my short sword, my helmet and my habergeon, the light body armour that protected throat and breast without hampering silent movement through any terrain; and, of course, my horse. I would wear no symbol of affinity but cease being a Neville knight and become an anonymous mercenary soldier of fortune; one that could mix with others of like kind.

However, before any of that I had to seek out one other person. I found her in the inner garth, a small and private walled pleasure garden. It afforded fresh air but there was little grass evident because the sun barely penetrated the high walls of Raby’s inner court, and so it was laid out with gravel paths, small evergreen bushes and painted wooden posts carved into heraldic beasts. At the far end was a sandy square reserved for bowling, where a girl in a green kirtle and a pretty lace-trimmed coif was throwing a stick for a little brown and white terrier.

Hilda Copley was the daughter of a local knight, who had arrived at Raby five years before to be a companion for Lady Cicely. The two girls had shared lessons, leisure activities and even a bed ever since, and I knew how anxious Hilda would be about Cicely’s continued absence. Besides, having taught both of them horsemanship and the rudiments of archery and self-defence, I was as close to Hilda as I was to Cicely, except that I was not Hilda’s half-brother and to me that was a very important difference.

When she saw me at the garth gate she abandoned the dog to his stick and ran towards me, skirts flying, a sight I greeted with a wide, appreciative smile.

‘What are you smiling about, Cuddy?’ she demanded excitedly. ‘Has Cicely returned?’

‘No, I fear not,’ I admitted. ‘Lady Joan wants me to spy out the situation in Brancepeth so I am about to leave.’

Hilda’s dark brows knitted in vexation. Usually I loved it when her pretty face creased in a frown and her brown eyes glinted in challenge but on this occasion I knew she was about to dispute my unquestioning obedience to Lady Joan – not a subject I was prepared to debate with her – so I forestalled her protest.

‘No one else seems to have any idea how to grapple with the problem so I am more than willing to go on a fishing expedition. At least I can travel unrecognized and ask questions in places where the Nevilles would not go. It might just yield results. God knows, something has to.’

The light of battle died in Hilda’s eyes and she became practical. ‘Someone has to,’ she amended, favouring me with faint twitch of the lips, ‘and Cicely can always rely on you.’ She did not add ‘more than the rest of her brothers’ but I could hear the unspoken words in her tone of voice.

She whistled sharply and the terrier came running up and dropped his stick at her feet. ‘Caspar is pining for his mistress,’ she revealed, picking him up and tucking him under her arm. ‘I thought a bit of exercise would cheer him up.’

Caspar was Cicely’s dog, used to following her everywhere except of course to the hunt, when the big alaunt hounds would probably have eaten him for dinner.

‘I expect Cicely is missing him,’ I remarked, falling into step beside Hilda as she walked towards the gate. ‘Are you going to feed him now?’

‘Yes, why?’

‘Well, I thought if you were going to beg some scraps from the kitchen for Caspar you might also acquire some supplies to sustain me on my travels.’

I was rewarded with a cuff on the arm. ‘So that is why you came to find me. And I thought it was for a sight of my bonny brown eyes.’

‘So it was,’ I protested, feeling the blood rise in my cheeks. ‘And your way with the kitchen staff.’

Hilda stalked off ahead, affecting indignation. The terrier’s tail wagged dismissively at me from under her arm. ‘Hah! Well, I suppose Caspar might spare you a bit of gristle.’

4

Brancepeth

Cuthbert

I took the moorland route to Brancepeth and rode in bright sunshine, my horse trotting easily over grassy sheep tracks. The dry conditions meant I could let my mind wander, considering the reasons for my unquestioning obedience to Lady Joan; the obedience which the spirited Hilda found so hard to comprehend.

Hilda was not illegitimate. She was the true-born daughter of Sir William Copley, late tenant of one of the closest of Raby’s many manors. Even as a young child, while her father was still alive, she had often been to Raby, making friends, especially Cicely who was nearest to her in age. I had often encountered her when I was a boy, but by the age of eleven I had begun serious training military training and grown scornful of little girls with their dolls and giggles. Now, of course, it was a different matter.

I do not remember precisely when I began to notice that Hilda had grown from a cheeky little girl into a dark-haired temptress, but it must have been during the summer that I started to teach her and Cicely how to shoot an arrow. I found something intensely appealing about the way Hilda tilted her chin before she hauled back on the bowstring, and when she flexed her arm and pulled I felt a blood-rushing response to the thrust of her budding breasts against the fabric of her bodice. She was thirteen and I was not yet twenty. During the three years since then, my teenage lust had turned into something more controlled, but my heart still missed a beat whenever I caught sight of her.

Since then, too, her father had died and her eldest brother Gerald had inherited the manor of Copley. Young Gerald had been one of my fellow henchmen at Raby, sharing the training, both military and social, that was intended to turn us into fierce and faithful Neville knights. As youths we had been quite good friends until I began to receive more senior and responsible posts than he did, a situation he judged to be due to favouritism. That was when he began to cast snide remarks in my hearing about ‘bastard blood’ and ‘bum-licking by-blow’, insults I managed to ignore. But when he got wind of my feelings for his sister his antipathy grew more sinister; there was ample opportunity on the practice ground for knocks and thrusts to result in real wounds inflicted accidentally-on-purpose. I had been much relieved when his inheritance took Gerald back to the manor of Copley, but before he left he made it abundantly clear to me that if any word reached him linking my name to Hilda’s, violent retribution would follow. Our paths had not crossed since but I knew that, apart from when he performed his knight’s service on the Scottish border, he was never far away.

The stain of bastardy was the glue that bound me to Lady Joan; not that she ever used that word. It was the reason I gave instant and unquestioning service to her. Very soon after my arrival at Raby I had been surprised and perturbed to be summoned to the countess’s tower and admitted to her private quarters. In the room she called her salon I was dazzled by the light that streamed through half a dozen diamond-glazed windows and awestruck by the opulence of the furnishings. Until then, I had known only the interior gloom of my family’s fortified farm high up in the dale above Middleham Castle, and its rough-hewn table and benches. Lady Joan’s sumptuous silk hangings and polished-oak chests and chairs were a revelation to me and I needed no nudging from her chamberlain to fall instantly on my knees before her raised and canopied throne. I was convinced I must be kneeling at the feet of a queen.

‘You are welcome to Raby Castle, Cuthbert.’ Her soft, aristocratic tones sent nervous shivers down my spine. ‘You may be surprised that I have sent for you but we have much in common, you and me. Like you I was baseborn and grew up under the shadow of illegitimacy. I know it is not an easy road to walk. I was lucky. My father eventually married my mother and was powerful enough to have her children legitimized. That will not happen to you and yet you too are lucky because you have impressed your father with your strength and intelligence. He will see to it that you receive the training necessary to join the elite force of Westmorland men-at-arms. But because you are his son he has asked me to ensure that you also receive an education and learn good manners, and so you are to join my sons and daughters at the appropriate lessons. I trust you will take advantage of this opportunity and repay our generosity with true loyalty.’

Under her gracious azure gaze I blushed furiously and mumbled some words of gratitude, turning the new homespun hood which my mother had made for me round and round in anxious fingers. At ten years old I needed no urging to pledge my loyalty to this beautiful, fragrant, splendidly jewelled lady. I wanted to prostrate myself before her and let her trample me under her satin-slippered feet but instead I bowed my head and tugged at the fringe of hair on my forehead. ‘Oh yes, my lady, I will,’ I said and, true to my word, I had repaid her over and over again and was even now continuing to do so.

At Brancepeth a posse of Raby men-at-arms was now camped in the shelter of a tree belt, well back from any archers’ arrows fired from the castle walls. Hal had seen to that at least. As I was wearing no insignia that might be recognized from the battlements, I went to speak to the sergeant in command but I took care to remain in the shadow of the trees. He reported no activity at all that day and, with dusk fast approaching, did not expect any. This puzzled me as Brancepeth was not under siege, but my curiosity was met with a shrug from the sergeant; his instructions were to keep out of arrow-range and log any activity. I took myself off to the village where I hoped to find looser tongues.

In the main street I promised a halfpenny to a loitering lad to mind my horse and he directed me to the alehouse, identifiable by a desiccated evergreen bush hung over its door. It was the usual low-roofed, smoke-filled, mud-floored hell-hole; a meeting place for unmarried local villeins with a farthing to spend, thirsty black-faced colliers from the nearby mines and weary travellers from the west who could not quite make it to Durham before curfew. I hoped it would be assumed that I fitted the last category. There was no room near the fire so I took a seat on a corner bench beside a man wearing the Neville bull on his jacket and signalled the pot-boy to bring me a mug of ale.

‘You must be a local resident, sir,’ I said politely, indicating my neighbour’s livery badge. ‘That is the Neville bull, is it not?’

The man’s grin revealed only three or four blackened teeth. ‘Brancepeth Neville, sir. The other lot, with their fancy sailing ship, do not show their faces here.’

I affected ignorance of Neville business. ‘Oh? Why is that?’

He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together with a knowing look. ‘Family feud, sir, over land, coin and castles. Rich men’s pickings.’

The pot-boy arrived with my ale in a banded wooden mug and I tossed him a farthing. ‘You seem very knowledgeable about the lord’s affairs,’ I prodded, taking a long gulp of the thin liquid. It was stale but not unpleasant.

He puffed out his chest. ‘Well I should know something since I work at the castle.’

With teeth like his I doubted if he worked in the private apartments but I decided flattery would aid my cause. ‘You must have a senior position, sir, if you can leave after dusk. When I rode past the drawbridge was up and the portcullis well and truly down.’

The man pressed his finger to the side of his nose. ‘There’s more than one way in and out of that place,’ he confided. ‘If you know the guards you can slip out the back. The lord’s brothers went that way very early this morning. I was returning from plucking a nice plump hen last night, if you get my meaning, and I saw them leave.’

I tried hard not to show my surprise at this information. ‘Off hunting vixen, were they?’ I suggested with a smirk.

He pursed up his lips, looking doubtful. ‘I reckon not. They had some skirt with them. There’s been a mystery woman staying and they fired one of the gatehouse canons at a troop from Raby which arrived this afternoon. Something to do with the family rift it seems. I work in the stables and one of the countess’s palfreys was missing from its stall but Lady Westmorland is still in the castle.’

Now the hair rose on the back of my neck. Was it possible that Cicely had been moved from Brancepeth and, if so, where had they taken her? Or had she persuaded her kidnappers to let her go and if so, again, where was she? I downed the rest of my ale hurriedly and stood up, excusing my hasty departure. ‘I need to get back to my horse before the lad I left it with realizes it would fetch more than I’ve promised him. Thanks for your company, my friend.’

‘If you need a bed I know a nice clean widow in the village who would share hers with you for half a groat.’ A big wink and another gap-toothed grin accompanied this offer.

I shook my head. ‘Not tonight, regrettably, I am on a pilgrimage.’ I saw his eyes pop with astonishment as I turned away and fought my way through the smoke and bodies to the door. Outside I smiled to myself and breathed the fresh night air with relief. The boy was still holding my horse and scampered off with glee, biting at the half-moon of silver I had given him. My stomach urged me to eat before following up on the information I had just received, so I set off, leading the horse, to seek a place to let him graze while I raided the saddle-bag supplies Hilda had procured for me.

In a far corner of the Brancepeth churchyard, I hobbled my horse and let him loose, then settled down on a gravestone to enjoy a substantial cheese pastry in the light of the rising moon. The church was dark; not even the flicker of a votive candle showed through the leaded windows of its rounded arches. Either they were shuttered or else the priest was gone for the day.

I could hear my horse munching his way around the graves and the occasional clink of his metal shoes as they struck a stone edge. I wondered what Cicely would be doing at that hour and where she would be laying her head. This would be the second night she had spent away from Raby. If she was no longer at Brancepeth would she even have a bed, or might she be confined in some cave up on the moors, or forced to sleep in a forest hut, hidden from prying eyes? If so, she would be uncomfortable and frightened but the worst aspect for her would be thinking that her family had entirely abandoned her. Cicely was not used to being belittled or ignored. Although she hated her brothers calling her Proud Cis, she was fiercely aware of her lineage and expected the deference due to a potential duchess. I wondered how she would have reacted if her ‘hosts’ had treated her with anger or disrespect. Might her removal from Brancepeth be due to them inflicting some form of retribution or inducement? A sense of the urgency of my mission escalated as I contemplated her position. I did not believe that the present earl would allow any physical harm to come to a female who was, after all, his close relative, but revenge could be achieved in many devious ways, particularly through damage to such a valuable young girl’s honour and reputation.