“Is this true, Lord Richard?” Ree lowered his brow at the shamefaced Dickon. Before the boy could reply, George delved under his brother’s cloak and held aloft the wriggling Traveller.

Humiliated, tears ran down Dickon’s cheeks. He could hardly believe it. George had betrayed him. Dickon was mortified as the escort laughed at the scene; oh, how he hated being mocked. And, at this moment he detested his brother.

The chuckling Ree turned his mount towards Fotheringhay’s open gate and deposited the dog into the groom’s hands for return to the kennel. Even Meg’s comforting arm offered no ease for this deeply hurt and confused little boy. He was struggling with a valuable lesson: if he could not trust his family, whom could he trust?

It was Richard’s first experience of betrayal—and at the hands of his own brother. Was it as early as this that the seed of the boy’s later hatred of George was sown?

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

September 1459

Hampered by the cumbersome carts, the journey to Ludlow took the Fotheringhay party a week through mostly friendly Neville country. Had Queen Margaret of Anjou been aware of the movements of these important children, she might have sent a troop to intercept them. It was always valuable to have a hostage or two to barter with—as Warwick had hoped to have with the captive king after Northampton, until he clumsily lost his prize at St. Alban’s. Happily, however, fortune smiled on the youthful travelers until they reached their destination on the edge of the Welsh Marches—the borderlands between England and Wales.

“Ned favors you, you know, George,” Meg had said idly as they passed by a village named Market Bosworth during one of the boring stretches of the Midlands’ rolling road, the carriage’s curtains tied up on all sides.

“And you are Father’s favorite,” George had shot back resentfully. “He never notices me.”

“Or me,” Dickon joined in. “I’m not sure Maman does either. I think she loves Edmund the best. I don’t remember much about Ned and Edmund, but I’m sure they wouldn’t favor me.”

“Don’t say that, Dickon,” Meg said, kindly. “I’m sure someone loves you best.”

George laughed. “Aye, every peasant at the castle—and don’t forget the dogs.”

All of a sudden, Anne swiveled around on her perch. She could not bear to listen to one more of George’s taunts. “It is better to have the honest love of the common folk than the loyaulte faux des nobles,” she pontificated, “the false love, vous comprennez? Et bien, do not ever forget it.”