A Dangerous Love (23 page)

In late April came the terrible news that King Richard’s little son, Prince Edward, had died. A hue and cry arose over the king’s two nephews, who had not been seen in many months now. Few knew the boys were at Middleham. Gossip said the king had murdered them the previous summer, but Adair knew the deeply religious and moral Richard adored all his brother’s children. The messenger who brought Stanton the latest news also brought Adair another letter from her half sister, Elizabeth.

I am betrothed,
Elizabeth wrote.

The negotiations between Mama and Mags were
concluded in late autumn. On Christmas Day my
Henry went in procession to the cathedral in
Rennes and proclaimed before both God and man
that he would have me as his wife. Many do not believe our marriage will take place, but I know it
will. Marrying me strengthens the Tudor claim to
England’s throne. Word has only just come that our
cousin, Neddie, died at Middleham. Queen Anne is 
prostrate with her grief, and the whole court is in
mourning. There is a rumor that the king will appoint his sister Elizabeth’s son, John de la Pole, the
Earl of Lincoln, as his successor, now that Neddie
is gone. The queen is too frail to bear another child.

My brothers are overlooked, I fear.

A new growing season had come to Stanton, and life burgeoned everywhere except in Adair’s womb. She began to wonder if what Elsbeth had told her was truth.

Had Andrew’s seed been rendered lifeless by a childhood illness? Everyone in the village had recovered nicely, but Adair noticed that the wife of one man who had been quite ill, and who produced a child regularly each year, was not now with child. Nor did she bloom with life in the months that followed.

England remained at peace that summer. Adair relied on Elizabeth for all the news, and her half sister did not disappoint her. Mostly her letters were filled with the minutiae of her daily life, but now and again she would write of some event, news of which might or might not reach Northumbria. In late summer Elizabeth wrote angrily:

My Henry has been sheltering in Brittany. The
king arranged with the duke to turn the Tudor over
to him this summer. It is said he means to charge him
with treason! Fortunately my Henry was warned in
time, and escaped into France, where King Charles
VIII has graciously offered him shelter.

Adair laughed when she read this to Andrew. “Of course the French will give Henry Tudor shelter,” she said. “They do whatever they can to irritate England.”

November came and they had been wed two years.

Neither she nor Andrew could address the subject of their childlessness. The winter came and went, and in early April, when the roads from the south were once 
again open, Adair received the first letter she had had in several months from Elizabeth.

The queen is dead,
Bess wrote.

She died at Westminster Palace on the sixteenth
of March. The king is devastated and heartbroken.

In less than a year’s time he has lost both his wife
and his only child. The queen never really recovered from Neddie’s death. She was always delicate,
but she seemed to fade away before our eyes with
each day that passed. God assoil her good soul.

And now someone is spreading a filthy rumor that
the king would wed me himself. He is so horrified
that he came to see Mama to swear to her that it was
not so. The two of them have made a peace of sorts.

But the horrible result of this disgusting rumor is
that our uncle will not see any of my sisters or me
again lest the gossip ignite once more. Proud Cis,
our grandmother, is furious that such a thing
should be said of her favorite son.

Adair shook her head. Why would people say such a dreadful thing of the king?

On the fifteenth day of August, as the harvest was being brought in, another letter, a brief one, arrived from Bess.

My Henry has landed at Milford Haven. The
Lancastrians are rallying to him, and I do not know
what will happen next. Pray for England.

“Is the letter dated?” Andrew asked his wife.

“Aye, the tenth,” Adair answered. And then she said,

“You must go to him.”

“I know,” the earl answered her. “I will take thirty men with me and leave you twenty, lovey.” He stood up from his chair by the hearth where they were sitting. “I
 
have to go and find Dark Walter. I’ll want to leave before the sunrise on the morrow.”

Adair nodded, but she was suddenly afraid for the first time in a long while. She pushed the feeling back.

Stanton was to be in her hands once more, and she had to be prepared for the worst. What if the Scots came raiding? Their section of the border had been relatively quiet of late, but she knew that once news of a civil war filtered through into Scotland, their borderers would take the opportunity to come raiding. They knew that with the throne in difficulty the local English authorities would be at sixes and sevens. And many of the small castles and halls would be lightly defended.

“Damn!”
she swore under her breath. They finally had Stanton prosperous, and now the Lancastrians were causing trouble again. She silently wished them all to hell and gone. But had Bess not written they would have never known the king needed their help. Adair hoped that this time her uncle would banish the bloody traitors for good and all.

Andrew came to bed late, but Adair was waiting for him. He wanted nothing more than to sleep. “I’ll get precious little sleep in the next few weeks,” he told her.

“We will make us a fine son when I get back, lovey.”

Then he kissed her, rolled over, and was soon snoring.

Adair lay awake for some time, finally falling asleep in the hour before dawn. But when he departed their bed she was instantly awake. They dressed together and descended into the hall, where the men were already at the trestles eating porridge from their trenchers. Andrew ate quickly, and then, with a shuffling of benches and a stamping of boots, everyone went out into the courtyard, where the horses were saddled and waiting.

He bent down from his mount and pulled her up to him, kissing her hungrily.

“Be good, lovey, and keep Stanton safe for my return,” he told her. Then Andrew lowered Adair back to the ground. Raising his gloved hand, he signaled his 
troop of men forward. Dark Walter was by his side as they rode off.

Adair watched as the cloud of dust stirred up by the animals thickened and then thinned with their passage until the Earl of Stanton and his party could no longer be seen. Turning, she walked slowly back into the house.

How long would he be gone? She already missed him.

But she had a duty to do, and she would do it. She had never in all her life failed Stanton or its people. She would not fail them now.

Two weeks went by, and then one afternoon a young boy on an obviously exhausted horse arrived at Stanton Hall asking to see the lady. Adair received him in the hall, and immediately recognized him as a page in the service first of the Duke of Gloucester, and later the king. Seeing her, he knelt.

“Lady, I beg shelter and sanctuary of you,” he said.

“I know you,” Adair answered him. “But I do not remember your name.”

“I am Anthony Tolliver,” the boy answered.

“You were at Middleham, were you not?” Adair 
inquired.

“I was. When my master became king he gave me the responsibility of serving his two nephews, Prince Edward and Prince Richard,” Anthony Tolliver replied. “I remained at Middleham.”

“Then my brothers are alive and safe!” Adair 
exclaimed.

“No longer, my lady,” was the terrible answer, and the lad began to weep. “What could I do, my lady? I was one, and I was afraid.”

Adair signaled to Albert. “Bring wine,” she said, and led Anthony Tolliver to a chair by the fire. “Sit,” she commanded him, and she sat opposite him in her own chair. “Tell me everything. Do not leave out any detail.”

The boy took the goblet that Albert handed him, and
 
drank deeply of it. Then, drawing a long breath, he began. “Several days ago one of the king’s men returned to the castle to tell us that King Richard and his forces had been defeated at Market Bosworth. The king could have escaped, but he would not go. ‘I will not budge a foot; I will die king of England,’ is what they say he said.

He was finally unhorsed and killed. They took his body, stripped it of its armor, and carried him to Leicester, where they buried him in the Grey Friars Abbey. When the crown fell from his helmet it is said Lord Stanley picked it up and placed it on the head of Henry Tudor, who is now declared king of England.”

“Lord Stanley is Lady Margaret Beaufort’s husband,” Adair told her servants, who were gathered about listening to Anthony Tolliver. “Henry Tudor is his stepson. Go on.”

“The battle was but two hours, but many were slain, and those lords who were not were gathered up and executed on the spot,” Anthony Tolliver said.

Adair felt a cold chill sweep over her, and she heard the soft gasp of her companions, for they all knew without doubt that the earl was among the dead.

“King Henry immediately ordered the arrest of his chief rival, Clarence’s son, the Earl of Warwick. Henry is proceeding to London, where he will be anointed and crowned. After the messenger had delivered his news many of the servants at Middleham fled. But others remained. Several nights ago, as I slept in my masters’

chamber, the door opened stealthily. There were two men, and they wore the badges of the Earl of Pembroke. I saw them quite clearly when they turned to depart. The room was dark but for the light from the antechamber. They came purposefully forward, and together they smothered the princes in their bedclothes.

Then they removed the boys’ bodies from their chamber.”

“Why did they not see you, and kill you as well so there were no witnesses?” Adair asked him.

“The princes were afraid to sleep alone, but they were also too proud to admit to it. King Richard knew this, and so it was arranged that I sleep within their room in a far dark corner each night. Few knew, and the light from the antechamber did not penetrate to that corner.

But when I was certain these assassins had gone I crept from the princes’ quarters, went to the stables, saddled my horse, and fled Middleham through a postern gate. I do not know if these murderers remained at the castle, but I could not take the chance that someone who knew where I slept each night would speak of it.

“I remembered that you lived several days’ ride from Middleham, and that you were the king’s niece. I thought you would want to know what had happened, and that perhaps you could make a place for me in your household, my lady. I am an orphan, and have nowhere else to go.”

Adair nodded. “You may stay,” she said. “Albert, take Anthony to the kitchens and see he is well fed. From the look of him he hasn’t eaten in several days.”

The young boy jumped from his seat, almost spilling the wine remaining in his cup. He caught up her hand with his free one and kissed it fervently. “Thank you, my lady! Thank you!”

Adair smiled briefly, then said to Albert, “Come back when you have settled him.”

“Aye, my lady,” Albert replied.

She was a widow once again. Uncle Dickon was

dead and buried. But most horrifying of all, the Lancastrians had murdered her two young half brothers.

And Adair knew why. Both Edward and Richard were a threat to Henry Tudor’s ambitions. Their claim to the throne was far stronger than his. His claim could be traced only through his mother, a descendant of John of Gaunt, King Edward III’s son. True, Henry’s paternal grandmother, Catherine of Valois, had been the widow of King Henry V, but when she had remarried it had been for love, and she had chosen a Welsh knight,
 
Owen Tudor, who had no royal connections at all. The Yorkist claim to England’s throne was far stronger, and so the two princes who had been kept in safety at Middleham had to be removed. Adair wondered bitterly if Bess knew. And if she knew, would she still be content to marry Henry Tudor? Then she laughed harshly at herself for being a fool. Of course Bess would marry Henry, and she would do it with a dutiful murmur, for there was no other choice. She would be queen of England.

And then suddenly the sadness and grief Adair had been struggling to contain burst forth, and she began to weep. Andrew was dead. And probably all of the Stanton men with him. She wondered if anyone had bothered to tell Robert Lynbridge and his grandfather. She had not seen either of them in months, but she would send them a message tomorrow out of courtesy. Her shoulders shook with her sorrow. Andrew was dead.

Uncle Dickon was dead, and the hated Lancastrians would soon be enthroned. It was not to be borne! She had no husband. She had no child. She was alone. She sobbed harder and harder.

Elsbeth came and, drawing a chair next to Adair’s, took her hand and began to stroke it. “There, there, lambkin. We have suffered worse, and prospered in spite of it all. We will overcome this too, my chick.”

“He would not make love to me before he left me,”

Adair sobbed. “He said we would make a fine son when he returned. Now there will be no son for Stanton.”

“Nonsense!” Elsbeth said. “When your mourning is over you will seek another husband, and marry again.”

“I have not even his body to bury,” Adair wept.

“We’ll put a marker on the hill with your parents’ and young FitzTudor’s to commemorate him,” Elsbeth suggested. “Many a lord has died in battle and been buried where they fell. There is nothing unusual about it. It is difficult, surely, for the widow, but there it is, my chick.

There is naught to be done about it.”

“I cannot start again,” Adair whimpered. “I am so tired, Nursie. I can bear no more tragedy in my life.”