Chapters (58)
When she looks out from Ludlow’s castle, around the silvered curve of the river to the rising hills of Wales, where church-building sheep bleat sweeter than courtiers, she wants very much to believe it can be as he says. But her father was not the king’s heir with a claim to England’s throne as good as the man’s who sits upon it. He was not, as Richard is, envied by Edmund Beaufort or suspected by William de la Pole. His sons were not resented by a childless queen.
‘They have put you in Ireland to get you out of the way.’
He’d shrugged. ‘I suppose.’
The service is over now and the people gone, but they have lingered. The warden of Ludlow’s Palmers’ Guild, who has directed the rebuilding, is showing off the work. He explains the raising of the roof, how it has swelled the hallowed space, and the glory of its painted sky, lit by stars and held aloft by angels. He prices for them the tall windows dedicated to God by the town’s rich guilds: the merchants, the fullers, the tailors, smiths and dyers.
At last Richard brings her back to the chancel.
‘You can see these, now everyone’s gone. Look …’ He points to the stalls, where every misericord, against which tired choristers will lean when worn with song, is a work of art in oak. He kneels, turns, draws her eyes to look. ‘I commissioned some of these myself.’
She leans beside him and the first he shows her bears King Henry’s antelope, necked with a crown. Another, the second Richard’s white hart. The next, the royal feathers, brought to England by the third Edward’s heir. Symbols of kingship, present and past, the rule of England lending strength to prayer.
His fine fingers run across the grain of them. ‘From my present duty to my long heritage.’ He turns on his heels. ‘Now, look here.’ He points her to another stall, where a sharp-eyed falcon tests its wings within a fetterlock. It is power and patience combined, the true cognizance of York since the first duke’s day. Here it stands, holding its own among kings.
‘I know who I am, Cecily. I am not bound. I may choose to sit quiet to the glove for now, yet I have talons. I will strike, if I must.’
