The Sunne in Splendour: A Novel of Richard III (70 page)

ment of anger, something he'd not truly thought through, might later repent of. When it was too late. Dear
Lord Jesus, how was it that Anne could not see how much more dangerous it made him that he could not, as she said, judge the consequences of his actions?
ANNE was startled when Edward in late August made George a grant of the lands held by the
Lancastrian Earl of Devon. She was pleased for Isabel's sake, but begrudged George as much as a single shilling. She had no illusions that the acquisition of these lands would make him any less greedy for the
Beauchamp and Neville estates. The more one feeds a pig, the more it does want, she'd said bitterly to
Veronique, who agreed, but entreated her to say such things only in the privacy of their bedchamber if she must say them at all.
Still, it had been a blessed reprieve, for George went west again, to look upon his new estates. As
August edged into September, it seemed to Anne that her life had stopped in time, had frozen into a pattern of endless waiting. She lit candles that all would go well for Richard in the North, prayed that he would soon return from Yorkshire.
Her luck ran out on September 5. It was a Thursday, Isabel's twentieth birthday, and soon after
Compline, George's household was thrown into a turmoil by the unexpected arrival of their lord. For
Isabel, George brought a magnificent gold-and-ruby pendant. For Anne, he had a long measuring look and a mocking smile.
In the days that followed, he was in suspiciously high spirits. Anne watched with wary eyes as he was openly and tenderly loving to her sister, teasing her and laughing at his own jokes and forcing Anne grudgingly to admit that his family's charm had not been portioned out exclusively between Richard and
Edward. He even turned some of that charm upon Anne herself, though she was hard put not to spit in his face. She'd come this summer to hate George as she'd never hated anyone before. Even Edouard of
Lancaster, whose memory was no longer looming so large in her life, had been less hated than George, George who now watched her with something approaching smugness. And somehow, Anne found that more unsettling than outright hostility. He was up to something; she was sure of it.
On September 13, George had ridden to Eltham Palace in Kent, where Edward was currently keeping court, and when he returned to London, Anne at first thought he must be ill. There was a greyish tinge to his complexion and he was snarling at the servants even before he'd turned over his lathered stallion to the uneasy grooms. When Isabel emerged from their bedchamber the following morning, none could doubt the night had been one of bitter quarreling. Her face was pinched,

showed sudden hollows and shadows Anne had never before noticed. She gave Anne no chance to speak, lashed out at her with unexpected, inexplicable rage, shouted, "Don't say anything! Not anything at all! I don't want to hear it!" And to Anne's consternation, Isabel then burst into tears, fled back up the stairs, not to come down again that day.
The week that followed was Hell for all within the Herber. When George and Isabel met in the great hall, on the stairs, at meals, the chill between them was such that it froze any unlucky enough to be within range. And at night, their raised voices carried even beyond the oaken barrier of their bedchamber door.
By Friday, the tension was such that all were snapping at one another out of sheer nerves and even the
Herber pets showed the strain. And that night saw the worst quarrel of all. The heated voices raged on into the early hours of the morning. Anne lay awake till dawn, aching for her sister and cursing George with every breath she drew.
But with daylight, an uneasy quiet seemed to settle over the house. George arose as the sky greyed and lightened, was gone before many in the Herber even realized he was no longer abed. Isabel kept to her chamber throughout the day, admitted no one at all. The hours dragged on.
By nightfall, Anne could tolerate the suspense no longer. She prepared a tray of food with which she hoped to tempt Isabel, who'd eaten nothing all day, and dismissed the servant standing vigil at her sister's door. The room was in darkness, still shuttered; even the bed-curtains were still drawn. She set the tray down, caught up her candle, and tentatively approached the bed.
"Get out. Whoever it is, get out."
"Isabel. . . .It's me, Anne."
Silence greeted her. She pulled the bed-curtains back on the near side of the bed and then cried out sharply as her candle's light fell upon Isabel's face.
"Bella, my God!" She scrambled up onto the bed, and with a sob that was pure outrage, gathered a resisting Isabel into a close embrace.
"Oh, Bella, I never thought he'd hurt you . . . not you!"
"The candle ... I don't want it, Anne. Put it out."
"I will, Bella . . . straight away." She breathed upon the flame, had one final glimpse of her sister's face, of the bruised puffy flesh that had swollen one eye shut so thoroughly that she could think only of the way eyelids were sewn shut on a newly captured falcon till it be broken to a man's hand.
"Have you hurts other than your eye? What else did he do? Bella, I'm going to fetch a doctor right now and-"
"No! No, you will not! Do you think I'd let anyone see me like this?

I'll be all right, Anne . . . truly. It was partly my fault. He was drinking and blind with rage and I should have realized . . . should have-"
"How can you defend him? After what he did to you? And you're his wife! He does pretend that he loves you. . . . Oh, Bella, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. . . didn't mean to make you cry!"
It was a strange sensation for Anne, to see the brittle self-assurance stripped so suddenly from the worldly willful sister fully five years her elder. She did all she could to comfort, which was to keep her arm around Isabel as she wept, to stroke her sister's loose bright hair, and to promise herself that she'd make George pay for Isabel's pain.
Isabel struggled to sit up. "Anne, listen to me. There is something I must say to you. I cannot help you, Anne. I cannot. But I did try. God's truth, I did, You must believe that."
"Of course I do," Anne said mechanically. It took the greatest effort of will to sit quietly there on the bed, to wait for her sister to continue speaking. Her heart had begun to hammer so that she seemed to hear nothing else. When she could stand it no longer, she said, "For God's sake, Bella, tell me!"
"I don't know him, Anne. I've known him all my life and yet I don't know him at all. He won't listen to reason. He just . . . Oh, God, you don't know . . . cannot imagine what he's been like. . . . I've never seen him like this, never!" Isabel fought to get her voice under control. "When he went to Eltham last week, Ned did tell him that he'd had word from Dickon, that he'll be back in London far sooner than
George expected, within a fortnight."
"Oh, thank God!"
"No, Anne, no. . . . You don't understand. That's forced his hand, you see. He thought he had more time, time to work things out. But now that Dickon's expected back so soon ..."
"Time for what, Bella?"
"Time to arrange ... to bring about your disappearance."
"What are you saying?"
"You still do not understand, do you? He's afraid, Anne. Afraid of what you'll tell Dickon, and of what
Dickon will then tell Ned. He's not rational about this. I cannot talk to him, cannot make him see reason.
I tried. It did no good, only led to this. ..." Her hand came up to her face, hovered over the darkening bruise that spread from her eye up into her hairline.
"He can see only the threat you do pose, wouldn't believe me when I swore I'd persuade you to hold your tongue. He's afraid of what Dickon will do, Anne, afraid of losing the lands. He thinks Ned will heed
Dickon, will take from him all the Beauchamp lands, mayhap the Devon lands,

too. He's gotten it into his head that there's but one thing to be done-that you must be gone from the
Herber by the time Dickon gets back to London."
"Gone? Gone where?"
"I don't know. ... A convent, I think. He's vague as to the details, won't tell me much. He did mention
Ireland once, and that seems most likely to me. He is still Lord Lieutenant there. But I cannot say for sure that it be Ireland. Burgundy, perhaps. ... I don't know."
"But he could not! Not force me against my will! Richard would never let him!"
"Oh, Jesus God, Anne, don't talk like such a child, not now! Of course he could. Do you think for a moment he'd have trouble finding men to do his bidding? It would be so simple, so simple that it frightens me, and should damned well frighten you!
"He need only see that your wine or food be drugged. You'd wake up aboard ship, out on the Channel
... in the hands of his men. Name of God, girl, can you not see? They could keep you drugged for days, weeks. By the time you had your wits about you, you'd be pledged to God in some poverty-stricken
Irish convent only too glad suddenly to have a rich patron, to have the corody he'd give for your keeping.
Or if not that, held fast within some remote manor house. As neat a conjuring trick as you would wish to see . . . and Dickon could search from now till Judgment Day with no hopes of finding you. No one would find you, Anne. Don't you see that?"
Anne did. "But . . . they'd know . . . Richard and Ned. ... If I were to disappear, they'd know he was to blame!"
"So I did tell him, too. But he said that they could prove nothing, not if he said you'd run away. That all the suspicions in the world mattered little without evidence. Like Harry of Lancaster, he said. All know
Ned did order his death, but none can prove it. I tell you, Anne, he's bound and determined to do this thing, and I cannot dissuade him. I can only tell you what he does mean to do. But you must never let him know I did warn you!"
Anne looked down at her hands, found they were trembling, and laced her fingers together in her lap.
"Bella, what should I do?" she whispered.
Isabel looked at her and then turned her head aside on the pillow. "I don't know, Anne," she said dully.
"God pity us both, but I don't know. ..." And she began to cry again, but silently this time. Anne knew it only because she felt a tear splash upon her wrist.

"ANNE, listen to me. . . . Listen! What proof have you that he truly has a convent in mind? Your sister said you could be drugged and wake up aboard ship. My fear would be that you might not wake up at all! What's to keep him from seeking a more lasting solution to the problem you pose? I know women are forced into convents, but that could well be a tale told for your sister's sake. He'd hardly confess to her that he did have murder in mind! Or he could . . . could put you within an asylum for the deranged of mind if he did balk at murder! Anne, he could-"
"Stop! Oh, God, stop!"
Anne had not consciously considered the possibility of murder. Now she found herself able to consider little else.
"I've got to think, think what to do. . . ."
"In France, there are churches that do offer sanctuary. Surely there be such churches, too, in England. ..."
Anne seized upon the lifeline thrown her in this, the first practical suggestion made that night. "Yes, of course! Churches like St Martin le Grand here in London do have sanctuary houses to rent within the church grounds, where you be safe from seizure!" That first spark of hope flickered, died.
"But . . . but it be no good, Veronique. I have no money, not even for food. And sanctuary would be the first place he'd think of. He'd have no qualms about violating sanctuary, Veronique, not if he thought he could get away with it, could have me taken without his name being brought into it."
"Your mother, then? Could you not go to her?"
Anne shook her head. "I do forget you know so little of England. Beaulieu is far to the south, near
Southampton. It might as well be in Wales!"
Urgency was now inciting Veronique to feverish mental activity. "What of your uncle, the Archbishop of
York? He has a manor here in London, no?"
"My uncle? God, no!"
"Chere Anne, I know you do blame him for forsaking your father as he did. But surely your need is such-"
"No, you don't understand. It isn't that. My uncle has become far too friendly with George. I could never trust him, never. If I turned to him for help, he'd betray me to George as he did betray my father."
It occurred to Veronique that Anne had been singularly unfortunate in the relatives God had seen fit to give her. "But Anne . . . Anne, I can think of no others!"
Anne had begun to pace. "I could have appealed to my aunt Cecily,

if only she were still at Baynard's Castle. I know she would help me, for all that George be her son. But she's been at Berkhampsted since mid-July and Berkhampsted is-oh God, Veronique, Berkhampsted is in Hertfordshire!"
"Anne . . . Anne, could you not turn to the King?"
"How, Veronique, how? He's been at Westminster hardly at all this summer, was at Shene and then
Eltham and the last I did hear, he and the Queen had gone on pilgrimage to Canterbury. He'll be back in
London when parliament does meet, but by then, it'll be too late, Veronique. Too late. ..."
"Anne, you must not despair. There must be someone. There must be!"
"Perhaps if I were to talk to the priests at St Martin's," Anne began dubiously. "Perhaps if they understood my plight, they might waive payment of rent on a sanctuary house. ..."
Veronique doubted that exceedingly; it was her experience that servants of God were no less mercenary-minded than the rest of mankind. Moreover, Anne was right. George would not scruple to violate sanctuary. To him, the only mortal sin would be that of discovery. Nom de Dieu, but there were so few willing to risk bringing upon themselves the enmity of a man as powerful as Clarence! One would have to be very secure or very saintly or none too fond of the royal House of York. . . . And suddenly it came to her, and she gasped, so excited that she lapsed into French, and it was a moment or so before she'd regained both her breath and her English.
"Anne! Anne, I have the answer! I know where you can hide, the one place where Clarence will never think to look for you!" She burst out laughing. "Do you remember the Brownells, they who came to my aid the day of the Yorkist victory procession?"
"Of course I do. But I don't see-"
"Their inn, Anne. . . . They do have an inn! You can go there, can wait for Richard in safety while
Clarence does scour the city for you!"
Anne was not impressed. "I have no money to stay at an inn, Veronique, and even if I did, that would surely occur to George, too."
"He might think to look for you as a guest, Anne, yes! But as a maidservant at the inn?"
Anne was regarding her in utter astonishment. "A maidservant?"
Veronique laughed shakily. "If you do find it so unlikely, cherie, can you imagine it ever occurring to
Clarence?"
After a moment, Anne smiled, somewhat uncertainly. "No, I confess I cannot! But this innkeeper . . .
would he do that for me?"
Veronique hesitated only briefly. "No. For you, he would not. Not