To the Tower Born - Robin Maxwell

Nell caught sight of Lady Anne’s face. It was a mask of incredulity and fear. Nell was afraid to glance at Bessie, for everyone in the hall knew that Gloucester’s overproud challenge might have been a blunder . . . perhaps a fatal one.
    Nell felt the light prick of a needle on her arm. Bessie was trying to get her attention. When she turned, her friend had an imploring look in her eye. Both girls remained silent and ladylike, but within moments had found reason to excuse themselves from the sewing circle.
    The rain had let up momentarily, so Nell and Bessie ran outside and hurried to the privacy of the tall hedge maze, and wove
    through the living green walls. But when they arrived at the center they found themselves unnaturally tongue-tied. The reason was Gloucester’s challenge to Antony Woodville. It was a strange and uncomfortable moment, for each of the girls held a forbidden fondness for one of the challengers, and for the first time in their lives, they had been thrust into opposition with each other.
    “Will your father allow the joust?” Nell said to break the uncomfortable silence.
    “I don’t know,” Bessie answered. “He seemed unconcerned.” Nell was reminded of her conversation with Lady Margaret, and the woman’s intimating that King Edward was perhaps losing his strength and capability. Nell had mentioned nothing of this to her friend, and stayed silent on it now.
    “Perhaps we should get back,” said Bessie, “before it starts to rain.”
    “Let’s do,” said Nell, and as they found their way back out, running into blind corners, back to where they’d started, laughing at their utter confusion, all discomfort between them faded.
    The girls were nearly through the maze when they heard voices on the other side of the hedge wall. Clearly, others of the family had taken the rain’s letup as an opportunity to walk out in the overcast afternoon.
    “Why have you done this, Richard?” they heard Bessie’s aunt Anne say. Her voice was low but clearly angry.
    Nell and Bessie froze in their tracks and, with their eyes, agreed to silence. In fact, they had agreed to eavesdropping.
    “You could be badly injured. Killed!” Anne said.
    “I will be neither injured nor killed,” Gloucester replied. “I promise you.”
    “But why? Why!” she cried. “No, let me tell you. ” Bessie and Nell were barely breathing.
    “You shall risk your life and limb,” Anne continued, “chance to leave your son fatherless, your wife a widow, because you loathe Antony Woodville.”
    Richard was silent, as though he was unable to refute his wife’s words.
    “How could you do such a thing!”
    “You speak as though I have no chance against Rivers.”
    “You have seen him on the jousting field, Richard. You have no chance against the man.”
    “And I have seen him on the battlefield! I am a hundred times the soldier he is. The king has called him a coward in war.”
    “No. The king took issue with Lord Rivers’s choice in making a pilgrimage too soon after winning back England after my father’s rebellion. The joust is an art, Richard. And you have never studied it.”
    “ ’Tis another form of armed combat,” Gloucester argued.
    “He is a head taller and two stone heavier,” said Anne.
    “Inch for inch, pound for pound, I’m Rivers’s match.”
    “And you’re stubborn as a mule!”
    “Let us be finished with this, Anne.”
    “No.”
    “No?”
    “Not until I hear you admit the true reason for this folly.” When Richard remained silent Anne said, “Then let me tell you.
    Despite the revulsion you claim at seeing your brother’s gluttony and decadence, you crave his love and admiration like a child craves sweetmeats.”
    Nell felt Bessie clutching for her hand. It was extraordinary to be privy to such intimate family intelligence.
    “It annoys you beyond measure,” Anne went on, “that Edward has placed his ‘precious jewel’ into the trust of Lord Rivers, because you despise the man