Red Rose, White Rose. Joanna Hickson

of Fauconberg. Those who objected that the marriage was distastefully mercenary and wholly against nature were confounded by the affection and care Will displayed towards his spouse and her clear love for him. Love had been rewarded, and their marriage was confirmed as legal and consummated when she recently became pregnant with their first child at the start of the year. Needless to say, Will was hoping for a healthy boy to inherit the barony, having already proved his own ability to father sons by siring two with his resident mistress.

      Ned was scornful. ‘You are as soft in the head as your wife, Will,’ he sneered. ‘Anyway, I say attack is the only option – preferably today.’

      I waited to see which way Hal would jump. Surprisingly, for a man of the sword, he sided with Will and his mother. ‘I do not agree,’ he said firmly, turning his back on Ned’s angry glare. ‘We do not have to fear for Cicely’s honour or her safety. Westmorland and his brothers may be thorns in our side but they are not the monsters you paint them. It is our sister’s reputation we must protect. Richard of York will be keenly aware, as I am, that a young girl who has not been permanently under the protection of her mother or some other responsible female can be considered damaged goods. If he perceives Cicely’s abduction as a way to free himself from his obligation to marry her, the king’s council would support him because they are looking to strengthen England’s crucial alliance with Burgundy. A marriage between a scion of Burgundy and an English royal duke would re-point its masonry.’

      He moved nearer to the countess’s canopied chair and knelt down before her in the guise of an earnest appellant. ‘We cannot allow that to happen, my lady mother. Although I know you remain sensitive in the matter, I think we should appeal to Eleanor to intervene. She must surely have considerable influence with Lord and Lady Westmorland.’

      Lady Joan’s face set in an icy stare and her knuckles grew white on the arms of her chair. Strictly speaking, she was no longer required to wear mourning for her late husband but, by payment of a hefty sum to the royal exchequer, she had obtained permission to remain unmarried and she still favoured widow’s weeds. In her gleaming black minerva-trimmed gown, relieved only by the high neck of her white linen kirtle and veil, she resembled an affronted abbess about to address an offending novice.

      ‘No, my lord, under no circumstances! Eleanor made her bed with Percy and she must lie in it. I have nothing to say to her.’

      Eleanor Neville, the eldest daughter, had eloped at sixteen with one of the Raby henchmen esquires, to be married by a hermit-priest in his cell deep in the Northumbrian borderlands. In a romantic turn of events it transpired that the apparently humble squire was, in fact, Henry Percy, heir to the earldom of Northumberland, who had been living incognito ever since his father and grandfather had forfeited their titles and estates by rebelling against the first Lancastrian king, Henry IV. Young Percy had wooed and won his lady in a fashion which might have thrilled a troubadour but had horrified and offended Lady Joan, who had never forgiven Eleanor, notwithstanding her chosen swain proving to have a status equal to her own. Family pride had induced the countess to intercede with her nephew, the newly crowned King Henry V, to get the young earl reinstated, so that her daughter could at least obtain the rank to which her birth entitled her, but the unforgiving dowager had never again set eyes on her runaway daughter, nor on the seven grandchildren Eleanor had provided her with.

      Now she reinforced her objection. ‘Besides, as I understand it there is little love lost between Lord Northumberland and his sister, the present Lady Westmorland. She too disliked the manner of his marriage. I doubt if they communicate.’

      Salisbury rose from his knees and stepped back speechless, merely shrugging his shoulders with a sigh.

      ‘So much for family loyalty,’ commented Ned with a grin. He made a sketchy bow in the direction of his mother’s chair. ‘If that is the best we can do I will take my leave. Cicely had better take her future into her own hands for it is apparent that no one here is going to bend over backwards to help her.’ He tossed a withering glance in my direction. ‘Least of all her much-vaunted champion, Cuthbert.’

      I bit back a retort as the countess rose, indicating that as far as she was concerned the meeting was over. ‘At least we can pray. I shall be in the chapel and do not wish to be disturbed unless there is an emergency,’ she said, sweeping her dark skirts around her feet and heading towards her privy door, trailing a drifting fragrance of attar of roses in the air and causing an ornate heraldic banner to billow on the wall. The banner quartered the red rose of Lancaster with the Beaufort portcullis and was bordered in blue and white; her own personal standard.

      Lady Joan made a small gesture as she passed me, indicating that I should follow her out but before closing the door behind us I heard Ned remark dryly, ‘Praying is all she will do. There will be no property concessions, that much is certain.’

      The private chapel at Raby was a small gem. Intended only for the use of the Neville family and their distinguished guests, it had been built by the old earl’s father, but Ralph Neville himself had commissioned the colourful frescos on the walls which celebrated the family’s rise to power. On an azure sea sailed the three-masted ship from which Admiral de Neuville had commanded the fleet which brought Duke William’s force from Normandy to invade England; beside that a scene of knights and archers in close combat depicted the famous Battle of Neville’s Cross, when the Scottish king had been taken prisoner on the moors outside Durham; and finally there were scenes showing masons working on the soaring walls of Raby castle, confirming the establishment of the Nevilles among the premier barons of England. At the chancel end of the nave stood a beautiful rood screen carved from Ancaster alabaster and adorned with images of local English saints especially revered by the family; St Cuthbert, St Hilda, St Aidan and St Godric.

      Lady Joan led me down the nave and paused by the screen. ‘You were named for St Cuthbert,’ she reminded me, ‘but my lord’s favoured saint was this one, Godric the crusader.’ She laid her hand on a fold of the saint’s stone robe. ‘A few weeks before your father died he brought me here and, despite his pain, he managed to kneel before this statue, though his wounded leg stuck out like a broken branch. Then he prayed aloud, asking the saint for guidance but I knew he was really consulting me.

      ‘“The surgeons want to cut off my leg,” he said. “You fought the devil, Godric. Standing waist high in the waters of the Wear, you battled the Anti-Christ for a day and a night. Tell me, God’s stalwart soldier, what must I do to combat Satan’s demons that fester in my leg?”’

      The countess turned away from the screen and addressed me directly. ‘Ralph did not have the strength to continue and I finished the prayer for him. I begged St Godric to allow my lord to remain a true knight, proud and upright and to carry his sword in Christ’s name. Not to let him stand before God a cripple.’

      ‘Oh, my lady,’ I croaked, shocked to hear that word applied to the father I revered. ‘What did my father say?’

      ‘He understood. He smiled at me through his pain and said, “So be it. I am sixty-two. I have lived my life. I will go to the Creator as He made me, with every limb intact. It shall be as it shall be. May St Godric give me the strength to bear it.”’

      I stared at her, bewildered. ‘You believe that cripples are the devil’s acolytes? That the present Lord Westmorland is a disciple of Satan?’ I asked.

      ‘Yes. But I believe he can be confounded by a miracle. There was no miracle for my lord Ralph but I will pray for one for Cicely.’

      With that Lady Joan went to kneel down at the plush prie Dieu which had been specially placed for her in the chancel beneath an image of Our Lady. I hesitated, wondering why she had required my presence but all became clear when she began to pray aloud. ‘Holy Marie, Mother of God, be with my daughter Cicely in her hours of trial. Show her the way to escape her captors and let there be a strong hand to help her when your miracle has been fulfilled.’

      I understood now. Lady Joan did not make specific requests of her vassals because she did not want to be disappointed if they failed to fulfil her wishes, but if they could be made to know those wishes indirectly then neither she nor they could lose face in the event of a failure. I was being given clear instructions