The Devil in Ermine Read online

  THE DEVIL IN ERMINE

  By Isolde Martyn

  Copyright 2013 Isolde Martyn

  If you would like to find out more about this author’s other books, please call in at www.isoldemartyn.com

  THE DEVIL IN ERMINE

  Isolde Martyn

  ISBN: 978-0-9873846-5-2

  For my dear Ricardian friends, Angela, Babs, Jenny and Julia,

  and in memory of Harold Cadell

  LIST OF HISTORICAL CHARACTERS

  APPEARING OR MENTIONED IN THE BOOK

  Henry (Harry) Stafford, Duke of Buckingham

  twenty-eight years old; the last legal heir of the House of Lancaster

  Catherine (Cat) Woodville, Duchess of Buckingham

  Harry’s wife and the mother of his two sons and two daughters; twenty-seven years old; younger sister of Queen Elizabeth Woodville

  Lord Stafford (Ned)

  Bess

  Harry’s two eldest children

  Pershall

  Bodyservant to Harry; bastard son of one of Harry’s Staffordshire retainers

  Ralph Bannaster

  Servant to Harry, with a farm holding at Lacom, in Shropshire

  Sir William Knyvett

  One of Harry’s councillors, married to Joanna, Harry’s aunt

  Sir Nicholas Latimer

  Harry’s chamberlain

  Sir Thomas Limerick

  Harry’s steward

  Sir Richard Delabere

  Harry’s henchman

  Dr Thomas Nandik

  Cambridge scholar and necromancer

  Edward IV, King of England

  Yorkist king since 1461, save for a brief exile in 1470-71

  Richard, Duke of Gloucester

  King Edward’s youngest brother and Harry’s cousin; thirty-one years old

  Anthony Woodville, Lord Rivers

  Harry’s brother-in-law; eldest brother of Queen Elizabeth Woodville; and tutor to the Prince of Wales at Ludlow

  Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of England

  Harry’s sister-in-law; King Edward is her second husband. She has two grown-up sons by her first marriage

  Edward, Prince of Wales

  Son of King Edward and Elizabeth Woodville; twelve years old; and has his own household at Ludlow

  Prince Richard

  Youngest son of King Edward and Elizabeth Woodville; Duke of Norfolk. Nine years old and lives with his mother at Westminster

  Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset

  Sir Richard Grey

  Sons of Queen Elizabeth Woodville by her first marriage

  William, Lord Hastings

  Lord Chamberlain and close friend of King Edward IV

  Francis, Lord Lovell

  Sir Richard Ratcliffe

  Sir James Tyrrell

  Henchmen of Richard, Duke of Gloucester

  Sir William Catesby

  Legal advisor and councillor to several noble lords

  John, Lord Howard

  Heir to the Duchy of Norfolk in the event of Prince Richard’s death

  Margaret (Meg) Woodville

  Bastard daughter of Anthony Woodville and Gwentlian Stradling; married to Robert Poyntz

  Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells

  Former Lord Chancellor; friend of George, Duke of Clarence

  Anne Neville, Duchess of Gloucester

  Wife to Richard, Duke of Gloucester and daughter of the late Earl of Warwick (“the Kingmaker”)

  Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond

  Mother of Henry Tudor, pretender to the throne; married to Harry’s uncle before her third marriage to Thomas, Lord Stanley

  Thomas, Lord Stanley

  Steward to King Edward IV; royal councillor; and married to Margaret Beaufort

  John Morton, Bishop of Ely

  Royal councillor; formerly a supporter of the House of Lancaster

  George, Duke of Clarence

  King Edward’s younger brother; executed in the Tower of London in 1478

  Cicely, Duchess of York

  Harry’s great aunt; mother of King Edward, George, Duke of Clarence and Richard, Duke of Gloucester

  Sir Ralph Assheton

  Supporter of Richard, Duke of Gloucester

  Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond

  Son of Margaret Beaufort; twenty-six years old; fugitive in Brittany; has an illegitimate claim to throne but his Beaufort bloodline is banned from succession by Act of Parliament

  The Vaughan Family

  A rumbustious family, living at Tretower, south of Brecknock (Brecon). Wales

  Elizabeth Lambard, Mistress Shore

  Former mistress to King Edward; friend to Lord Hastings

  Anne Neville. Dowager Duchess of Buckingham

  Harry’s late grandmother, who gave him in wardship to King Edward in return for the restitution of her husband’s lands

  Warwick the Kingmaker

  father-in-law to King Edward’s brothers, George and Richard; made Edward king in 1461, later switched his allegiance to the House of Lancaster. Slain at Barnet in 1471

  William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke

  Loyal to King Edward; slain in 1469. Harry was briefly in his household

  Sir Henry Stafford

  Harry’s uncle, second husband of Margaret Beaufort; died in 1471

  King Henry VI

  Former King of England of the House of Lancaster; reigned 1422-61 and briefly 1470-71; mentally unstable; ‘died’ in the Tower of London in 1471

  Sir Humphrey Stafford

  Nobleman loyal to Richard, Duke of Gloucester

  Walter, Lord Ferrers

  Yorkist nobleman with a house at Weobley, Herefordshire

  PROLOGUE

  October 1483

  I am to be charged with high treason.

  They are taking me to Salisbury and King Richard will be there. The last time we met I was dressed so richly that whole families could have lived for years upon the cost of that day’s clothes. Now where am I? Riding with my wrists bound to the saddle pommel, and a borrowed, shabby mantle straining across my back.

  God’s mercy! Has someone ridden ahead? Every village we pass through spews up its flea-bitten inhabitants and they all ooze out to stare at me as though I am a captive monster.

  Enough, I must value each hour on this road. When I see Richard, I shall have to speak skilfully, swiftly. I need to marshal my thoughts like soldiers in my defence, be clear on what has happened, make some straight skeins out of the tangle of events.

  Richard will listen: the stars that presided over his birth gave him a strong sense of justice so he cannot help but listen.

  May Almighty God give me eloquence and may the King forgive me.

  CHAPTER 1

  Six months earlier

  Before the strange messenger arrived, I could have been struck by a lightning bolt and made no difference to England’s history. But in April 1483, the planets that favoured my birthsign moved into unparalleled amity. In one day, one hour almost, my fortune changed.

  Instead of attending King Edward at Westminster Palace, I had taken leave and returned to my castle above the town of Brecknock – Aberhonddu as the local Welsh call it. I was weary of hanging about the royal heels like an idle dog. Being Duke of Buckingham and the last legal heir of the House of Lancaster might engender envy in some but they would be misguided. I hungered for the respect that comes with high office, the respect that had been accorded to my grandsire, the first duke, but Edward gave me no opportunity to prove myself. At twenty-eight years old, it was little wonder I was so discontent.

  On the afternoon of the day the messenger rode into Wales, I admit to frolicking. My servants had done their best to alleviate my tedium by finding me two pert wenche
s in a hamlet south of the town. These twin girls were pretty as briar roses, fragrant, black-haired, blue-eyed, mischievous and, mercifully, clean. I was welcomed into their dwelling, where they blindfolded me and tormented me so exquisitely that I could not tell who nuzzled me or which one of them sat astride me first.

  When I was sated, their sweet whispers and girlish laughter lapped around me – as gentle as perfumed bathwater after a day in the saddle. One of them slid from the bed to stoke the cottage fire. The other girl fetched sweetmeats and, while her sister fed me, she teased me to hardness once again. I might have stayed longer in their company but Sir William Knyvett, my uncle by marriage, rapped upon the cottage door and straightaway let himself in.

  ‘Harry, are you going to be much longer?’

  ‘You wish to join us?’ I asked, but something in his face made me toss aside my delightful rider and reach for my shirt.

  ‘And have your aunt strangle me with one of her garters? No, Harry, it’s John Shenmore – the bailiff you sent to Abergavenny, remember. He has just has been carted in with broken ribs. He was attacked down by Tretower on his way back this morning.’

  ‘The Vaughans?’ I asked. It had to be the Vaughans, the greediest marauding whoresons this side of the Black Mountains.

  ‘Aye, who else?’

  ‘Excellent.’ I turned and gestured for my clothes. ‘We can ride down tomorrow and whack the hell out of them. It may not be as satisfying as sitting on the Royal Council, invading France or—’

  ‘Or risking the pox,’ Uncle Knyvett cut in. He moved aside to let the girl bring me my gipon and underdrawers. ‘Good, were they?’ His stare was appreciative

  ‘Very good, eh, cariad?’ I smiled down at the girl as she knelt to slide my feet into my woollen stockings. I thanked her in Welsh and carried her sister’s hand to my lips. ‘So, is Shenmore badly hurt?’ I asked Uncle Knyvett. No doubt extra payment would ease the fellow’s pain.

  ‘He’ll mend.’

  ‘Come, then, I am done here.’

  I teased the wenches by striding to the door without giving them payment. But as I grabbed the latch, I turned, laughing, and paid them double their worth, amused to see their dismayed mouths tilt into merriment again.

  It was a shock to leave the warm stew of the wenches’ abode. The chill wind scourged our backs. April still had the breath of winter. Last night’s toss of snow garlanded the hedgerows and the road was hard with frost beneath our horses’ hooves. As we neared the river, I glanced over my shoulder. The clouds above the ebbing sun had parted over the mountains in a splendour of gold and vermilion as if Christ’s return was due. Was it an omen?

  I gave spur to my horse and hastened across the drawbridge of my castle with new heart. The murrey sandstone walls were blushed a deeper hue beneath that glorious light and the grisailled windows of the great hall were conjured into a hundred tiny, shining mirrors. I do not exaggerate. I had never beheld such an immodest configuration of clouds and I tossed my ambler’s reins to a stableboy, hurtled up the stone steps and stood gasping on the battlements. But already the beauty of that sky was fading. So soon? Did it mean nothing? Oh God, surely there had to be some worth to life instead of the constant yearning that obsessed my soul.

  ‘Your grace?’

  Pershall, my bodyservant, had come to find me. His dark blue eyes were concerned. He had reason; I do not usually behave as though stung by a gadfly.

  ‘Observing me for signs of fever, Pershall? I came to see the sky.’

  ‘Not like you, my lord.’ Impertinent, disbelieving, he stared across the rooftops of the town to where the hills reared like an angry sea, and instantly dismissed the fading clouds. ‘Were the girls not to your liking, your grace?’

  ‘Most satisfactory, Pershall. Quite imaginative.’ I guessed the blindfold had been his suggestion.

  ‘Thank the saints for that. Well, I should stay up here a bit longer if I were you, my lord. Your youngest is bawling fit to wake the dead.’

  I narrowed my eyes against the rising wind as I looked towards the great ridge of Pen-y-Fan, the inevitable horizon of Brecknock. It was dark and brooding now, its green-gold collar lost in the half-light. Maybe I believed in far too gracious a god. No gentle hand had clawed out those valleys and slapped those crags against the sky.

  ‘Should be good fishing on Llyn Safaddan soon, my lord.’

  I shrugged sourly.

  ‘What about the Myddffai girl for you tonight? You remember, my lord, the red-haired wench with duckies to die for.’

  Was that my reputation? Naught but a horny Plantagenet? Sweet Christ, any lord can have a warm-thighed woman who by night willingly creases the sheets she has so lovingly laundered by day. I would have given my soul to be useful instead of rutting in Wales.

  Pershall would have earned a terse answer had not the barking of dogs and the trumpeting from the river gatehouse proclaimed the monthly arrival of the messenger from the Queen, my sister-in-law.

  ‘Shall you go down, my lord?’ Pershall looked hopeful.

  ‘What for, Pershall? News of the latest royal runny nose can wait until suppertime. Go and make ready my bath.’ I kept walking, the black dog of despair following behind my spurred heels like a shadow.

  ‘Harry! Harry, where in Hell are you?’

  Uncle Knyvett emerged from the upper floor of the nearest tower. For a man in his forties he was very fit but the stairs had made him breathless. ‘Th…the messenger that has just come from Westminster, Harry, he’s a strange one. I think you should go down. He’s not from the Queen and he will speak only with you.’ I shrugged, but Uncle Knvyett had the bit between his teeth. ‘He’s poorly clad and yet he rode in on one of the King’s post-horses. Something’s up, lad.’

  ‘Then I’d better come.’ Uncle Knyvett’s common sense was always reliable, he was the most trustworthy of my retainers and I loved him dearly. If the messenger had a commission to change horses at the inns where the royal letter carriers swung from one saddle straight into another, then the fellow’s news was urgent and official. God willing, one of my Woodville in-laws might actually have died.

  I did not stride in by the great doors. I halted instead in the shadows of the minstrel gallery, wishing to observe this messenger before I questioned him. Catherine, my wife, had just come from her viols and hautboys in the solar and was standing on the dais with two of her women and my chamberlain, Sir Thomas Latimer.

  A spindly, ill-clad fellow was on one knee before her, his head dutifully bent. The hall was unusually silent save for the spitting of the logs. Straining to catch any morsel that might break their tedious diet of Welsh happenings, my servants were working softly

  Cat asked the stranger’s name and he raised his head and looked at her not a little astonished. Maybe he could see she was behind Westminster in her garments. That was ever a quarrel between us. Cat spent her allowance on her musicians but was constantly complaining to her family that she lacked French silks and jewelled collars. Mind, if we had been summoned to court more often, I should have seen her adorned appropriately.

  ‘I am called Thomas Nandik, gracious lady.’ His Essex voice had an oily timbre to it.

  ‘The Queen has not sent you before, has she?’ Cat sounded coaxing. The man was clearly not a courtier, and one of her ladies tittered at his gaucheness. But when my duchess tried to question him as to affairs in London, the fellow hedged his answers in such an uneasy manner that my curiosity could bear it no longer.

  ‘Who is this?’ I demanded brusquely. My wife raised her blue glaze eyes to me at the gallery rail with a faint shrug. The messenger waited while my chamberlain introduced him, then he eagerly scrambled to his feet, stretching from a question mark into a thin slash of a man. This was no courtier nor courier for his daily bread. He wore no livery and his amber rosary and clerical robe hung limply over a frame that was almost as fleshless as a scarecrow’s. But there was a brooding mischief in his face that hinted not at malevolence but rather that he carried some g
ood news. I was intrigued; he had broken the monotony and for that deserved an audience.

  ‘Well, man, what is your purpose here?’

  ‘So please your grace, a letter for you and a spoken message to be delivered privily.’

  I was tantalized. ‘Bring him up!’

  ‘YOUR bath’s getting cold,’ Pershall grumbled as I shrugged my riding jacket into his arms and went past him into my inner sanctum, where the yeomen of my bedchamber were waiting to unknot my points.

  Master Nandik was shown in. He faltered, lanky and round-shouldered, betraying himself as uncomfortable as a Jew in a Christian chapel.

  ‘Is there to be a new parliament, then?’ I asked him while my people removed my gipon and hose.

  ‘Yes, your grace.’

  I scowled in disappointment at the paucity of his news and wrapped my dressing robe of yellow silk and coney fur about me. What message was so vital that it needed to be delivered alone? Besides, my bath was waiting.

  I idly dipped my knuckles into the rosemary-perfumed water. ‘You have leave, all of you.’ I watched my people shuffle out past the stranger casting their annoyance at him in swift furtive glances. He was still hanging by the door like some ragged coat upon a nail.

  ‘What is your calling, sirrah?’ I asked him.

  His gaze fell before mine. ‘A poor doctor of Cambridge, your grace. That is, until a few days ago, when I was asked to become a messenger.’

  ‘How very unusual. Is King Edward trying to save expenditure?’

  ‘Not any more.’ As he came forward, he drew a letter from beneath his mantle, his face suddenly wicked as any goblin’s. ‘Lord Hastings did not wish to send one of his known envoys, your grace.’