“Did you know our English laws are all written in French or Latin, Mother, which means no one except priests, lawyers and we of the nobility can read or understand them? Do you think that is fair?”

He had not realized he had raised his voice enough to quell conversation in the hall and stop the musicians mid-phrase. All eyes turned to Edward, who momentarily paused in his stroking of his wife’s full breasts that were bulging invitingly over her low-cut gown. Turning to the trio by the fire, he made a mocking gesture of futility with his hands and waved on the music. “Richard is lecturing again,” he whispered to Elizabeth.

“Have a care, my son,” Cecily warned Richard. “Keep your radical thoughts to yourself—until you become king.” Chuckling at the impossibility, she took Jacquetta’s arm and drew her away. “This is what comes of allowing him to play with the yeomen’s children at Ludlow.”

Richard was disappointed. Had Cecily Neville forgotten her own intercession forty years before when she had rescued the youthful Piers Taggart from the life of an outlaw? She had been just as outraged then at the injustice of the young peasant’s plight as Richard was today, and she had taken pity on Piers and given him a position in the York household. But years as a royal duchess and now mother of a king had detached the once compassionate Cecily from commoners.

Richard’s awkward moment with his mother was averted by a loud knocking on the manor’s stout oaken door. A harried messenger, snow still clinging to his sodden cloak, was ushered in and fell to his knees in front of Edward.

“What means this, sirrah?” Edward demanded. “You interrupt our festivities.”

“I come from the Lord Rivers’ estate in Kent, Your Grace,” the exhausted man mumbled. “I would speak to his lordship.”

“I have no secrets here.” Edward’s debonair father-in-law stepped forward, and bowed to the king. “By Your Grace’s leave.” Edward gestured to Rivers to question the man, who revealed that a mob had attacked the baron’s manor in Kent and that he, the messenger, had ridden hard for two days to report the incident. Jacquetta and Anthony hurried forward and plied the man with questions.

Edward walked to Richard’s side and, sotto voce, admitted, “I like not this news. I heard another such attack took place in the north a few days ago—Warwick adherents all.”

Richard stiffened. Four years of serving the earl faithfully made him loath to accuse his patron, despite growing suspicion that Warwick was on the verge of turning his coat. He came to Warwick’s defense. “How can you be certain these are Warwick’s men, Ned? Where is your proof? I left his lordship in the bosom of his family preparing for the season not a fortnight ago.”