By Loyalty Bound: The Story of the Mistress of King Richard III (17 page)

“Does Anne Neville remain in the nunnery?” she asked, tempted to pray that the woman might find a vocation and stay there.

“No. She is in the safekeeping of her uncle, the Archbishop of York
.
”

Anne was pleased when the bickering went on. Richard would not risk marrying Anne Neville until the matter was settled and he could be sure that Middleham would remain his.

He came to her again as he travelled north to York and stayed for a few nights. He was loving to her and John, as always, and if she had not known about his marriage plans Anne would never have doubted that she was the only woman he desired.

He never spoke to her about what had happened in London. It was as if he separated the two worlds in which he lived with no coincidence between them.

But it filled Anne with anxiety. She needed to know what would happen to her when he married and whether she would be able to remain at Pontefract, and on the last night of his visit she could keep silent no longer.

“I have heard of your disagreements with your brother,” she said as she sat combing out her hair in his bedchamber. She watched as he paused. He had sent everyone else away and was sitting on the edge of the bed, taking off his hose.

She waited, holding the comb in one hand and a strand of hair in the other, and watched him. Her heart beat a little faster as his brows drew together and she wondered if it would have been better if she had kept her silence.

“I think the dispute between my brother and myself has become the chosen subject of London gossip,” he said as he came across to her. “George remains totally unreasonable. He will not see that he must allow Anne Neville her share of the Warwick estates.” He took the comb from her hand and began to draw it through her hair.

“Are you displeased with me?” she asked.

“What makes you ask that?”

“I always seem to ask questions that you will not answer.”

“Which questions?”

“About our future. About what will happen to me when you marry...”

He put down the comb then gathered her hair in his hands and bent to kiss her. The kiss was insistent and his hands held her head firmly until she finally responded and kissed him in return. Then he lifted her and carried her to his bed where he covered her mouth with his mouth and her body with his body and eventually she lost herself in the moment and he had still not answered her concerns.

The leaves on the trees that grew around Balderstone Hall were fading to orange and yellow as Robert waited for Isabella outside the porch of St Mary the Virgin. It was here that they were to be married in the presence of both their families – although Anne remained at Pontefract. The Duke of Gloucester would not allow her to travel into Lancashire lest she fall back into the hands of the Stanleys.

James stood beside him. Confident that Hornby would not be attacked by Lord Stanley in his absence, he had left the castle. He had accepted the offer of the king to allow the matter to be considered by an independent council of arbiters and had agreed to a huge fine of three thousand marks to accept their decision. It was a sum that Robert doubted his brother could pay if the court did not find in his favour and he did not share his brother’s optimism that he would be successful. If only points of law were to be discussed and matters of loyalty put aside, then the castle did belong to Anne and he feared that James would never be content with such a ruling.

The piping and bells of the minstrels who accompanied his bride made him look round. Isabella was beautiful. Her hair was loose and uncovered for the marriage and sprang brightly around her face from beneath a chaplet of late roses. He greeted and kissed her. She was scented with the herbs in which she had bathed and her breath was warm on his freshly shaven cheek as she eagerly greeted him in return.

“At last,” he whispered as the music ceased and they turned to the priest.

As the autumn of 1472 turned to winter at Pontefract, Anne felt the subtle, fluttering movements of a new life in her womb. She had been waiting for Richard to visit her so that she could give him the news of another child, but when the Christmas season came and went and he did not come, she was forced to acknowledge that she was far from his immediate concerns and she decided that she must send him a letter.

She sat down to write such personal tidings in her own hand, but as she composed her letter she heard a great commotion outside in the courtyard and, dropping the quill with a splash of ink, she hurried to the great hall just as he came in, well wrapped against the cold.

“Your Grace!” She curtseyed clumsily before him as he pulled off his outer coat and tossed it to a pageboy she didn’t recognise. “I did not expect you.”

“It appears we have arrived before the messenger,” he glowered. “Send the lazy wretch to me when he does arrive,” he ordered. “I would like to learn what has kept him along the way!” Anne twisted the ring on her finger as she watched him go to the fire to warm himself.

“My lady, I apologise,” he said after a moment. “The journey has been arduous and my patience sorely tested. I miss the good sense of your uncle as he and his new wife amuse themselves. Bring wine, and something to eat!” he bawled at the young page who fled, looking terrified, to do his bidding. “I should not have shouted at the lad,” he said as he watched him go. “He is a good boy and I have no wish to appear a tyrant, but the cold has numbed my very soul, I think.” He held out his slender hands to the blaze of logs and then rubbed them together. “Feel how cold I am!” He touched her cheek with the back of his hand and laughed as she recoiled from the iciness. “And how are you, my love? I am truly sorry you had to spend Christmas alone. If it could have been otherwise I would have made it so, but...” He studied her hard for a moment then reached to turn her to face him, holding her arms with his cold hands and looking at her figure. “This is not from feasting,” he commented as one hand swept across her stomach. “Anne?”

“I am with child, my lord,” she said and watched as his face softened into a wide smile of pride and satisfaction.

“I said that you were made to bear my sons.”

“Or daughters. You are not displeased?” she asked warily.

“Anne, why must you always think that you court my displeasure? Just because I cannot be always with you does not mean I love you any less. Come!” He held his arms wide and she accepted his embrace with relief. “When do you expect the child?” he asked, kissing her face.

“Around Maytime. Will you...?”

“I will make sure that I come to you,” he reassured her. “And now, let me see my son. Does he walk yet? What words can he say?” He took her hand and they went to the nursery where John was playing with little farmyard figures on a rug before the fire. When he saw Richard a smile lit his face and he lifted his arms to his father who picked him up and tossed him in the air as he screamed in delight. “He knows me.”

“Of course he knows you,” said Anne, with relief, as she watched her son close his chubby hands around the fur of his father’s collar and say something that Richard always swore was ‘Papa’.

His cold and hunger were forgotten as he played with his son and Anne delighted in watching them together. Later, when they had said prayers and both kissed the boy goodnight they went to a late supper, and afterwards he asked her permission to come to her chamber.

“My bed has been too cold these winter nights,” she replied.

“Then you would have me warm the sheets for you? I thought I employed servants to do that.”

“Not in the way that you warm them, my lord!” she laughed.

He took her to bed and gently eased himself into her burgeoning body as she clung to him, loving him more at each ripple of joy. Eventually they slept, warm in each other’s arms and for a time at least Anne felt safe.

The weather worsened and the snowdrifts piled themselves against the castle walls. Richard was anxious to get back to his affairs in London, but Anne was glad that the weather kept him at Pontefract. And, as he realised that there was no chance of heading south again until a thaw set in, he relaxed in her company.

“Does my uncle still hold Hornby?” she asked him one morning as they were playing with the baby.

“For the present, although I fear he may be forced to give it up. Why? Are you in need of the place?”

“It would be nice to go home,” she said, wistfully.

“But this is your home now. It’s far grander than Hornby.”

“I have pleasant memories of Hornby,” she said, thinking of the day she had first gone to his bedchamber, and wondering how long she would be allowed to remain at Pontefract after his wedding and where she would go if Hornby was claimed by the Stanleys.

“Anne,” he said after a moment’s silence. “I will have to return to London soon.”

“I know,” she said, sadly.

James had been called to London for the arbitration and now he watched as the Duke of Gloucester came towards him with sorrow and disappointment clouding his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You will be informed officially, but the tribunal has found against us. Hornby will go to Stanley after all.”

It was many years since James had cried but he found it difficult not to do so now and it was a moment before he could compose himself enough to speak.

“Your Grace, I am indebted to you for all your support.”

“I only wish the outcome could have been what you desired... what we both desired,” said the duke gloomily. “But we will soon go to war with France,” he continued and James noted the gleam in his eye. “It is better for the country if all Englishmen pull in the same direction rather than squabble amongst themselves. And Anne will have the castle. With God’s blessing she may bear another son who will inherit it in time.”

“A son with her husband?” asked James.

“I will not compel her to remain my mistress when I am married to Anne Neville,” said Richard.

Late in the spring of 1473 Anne felt a dull ache in her lower back. It intensified as the evening wore on and as she laboriously climbed the stone steps to her chamber that night she felt wetness and realised that the time had come.

This time Richard was not there to take her hand and reassure her. Isabella was attending to some affairs on Robert’s estates at Badsworth and the only companion that she had was John’s nurse. She came running at Anne’s sharp cry and quickly sent one of the kitchen maids to fetch the midwife.

Anne wept with pain and fear - and because Richard had not come as he had promised.

“You must send a message to the Duke of Gloucester,” she gasped between the pains of her contractions.

“You can send word to him when the child is born,” said the nurse.

“No. Tell him now. Tell him to come,” she sobbed, wanting no one else’s arm around her but his, though she knew that many days would pass before he could reach her even if he rode north as soon as he received the letter.

At last the midwife came, with her assistants; the same ones who had attended John’s birth.

“What’s this mistress?” she asked gently. “Do not be distressed. It’ll do the babe no good. Dry your tears,” she said, handing Anne a cloth, “and we’ll soon have this baby in its cradle.”

Once more Anne gave herself up to the women and in the early hours of the morning of the sixteenth day of May she bore a little girl, smaller than John had been but with a similar head of thick dark hair.

“She has her father’s hands,” said Anne, caressing the long, slim fingers when the midwife laid the baby in her arms.

“What will her name be?”

“I don’t know. I hoped for another boy. The duke wants sons.”

“He will be smitten when he sees this little one,” smiled the midwife. “For all they say they crave sons they always make a special place in their hearts for daughters.”

Anne smiled up at her. “Thank you,” she said. “You have been so kind to me, again. I will make sure the duke rewards you well.”

Richard came within the week. Anne was still confined to her chamber. This time she was unable to feed the baby herself and a wet nurse was brought; a young wife from the town whose own baby had not survived. It pained Anne to watch this stranger suckle her newborn to her breast, but as soon as the baby was fed she took her from the girl and held her close to her own body as she slowly walked the chamber until she was lulled to sleep. It was a practice frowned upon by the nurse who thought the baby should be tightly swaddled and put in the crib, but Anne defied her and was pleased when the woman demurred.

Richard came straight up when he arrived. His footsteps echoed outside her door. She smiled at his infectious laugh as she heard him teasing Isabella that it would be her turn next, and she wondered at the strength of the love she felt for him. She had tried so hard to quell her feelings, to put her passion for him aside, but it seemed that it was stronger than ever and when he came in and his eyes met hers she could not prevent herself running to him.

“What’s this, my love? I thought I should receive a frosty welcome for my tardiness,” he said as his arms surrounded her and she felt herself crying on his shoulder as she had when he’d come to take her away from Lathom House. “Oh Anne! Don’t cry. You make me feel ashamed.”

“I cry with joy to see you, my lord. You have a daughter,” she said, wiping her cheeks with her hands and watching his face as he turned to the cradle, his arm still around her waist, to look at his sleeping child.

“Did you choose a name for her baptism?”

“She is called Katherine.”

He bent to pick the baby up and the nurse looked disapproving as he cradled her wearing his travel-stained clothes. Anne saw his face soften with the affection that the midwife had predicted and she knew that this little scrap of humanity would always be special to him.

On a sunny morning later that summer Anne rose early and went across the bailey to the chapel of St Clement to pray. It was the day that Richard would marry Anne Neville at Westminster Abbey and she felt bereaved. She knelt at the altar before the steady flame of a beeswax candle and knew that by the time it burnt down he would be the husband of another woman. She knelt, relishing the pain in her knees and her back as she watched and prayed all through the day. No one disturbed her - not even the nurse who had come to say that little Katherine cried for her mother. The whole of Pontefract Castle knew what was taking place and they left Anne alone to grieve.