The Silver Bride Read online

  About The Silver Bride

  When it's love versus loyalty, every choice could be your last.

  In a world where her clairvoyance could see her burned as a witch, Heloise has never believed herself worthy of love. So when her father forces Sir Miles Rushden to marry her at swordpoint, Heloise is not expecting a happy ending. Cast out by her father, she has no choice but to throw herself on the mercy of her reluctant bridegroom.

  Sir Miles Rushden, adviser to Harry, Duke of Buckingham, awaits the chance to thrust his friend towards the crown. But the threat to Miles's ambitions, when it comes, is from a completely unexpected source. His silver-haired wife is a former maid of honour in Richard, Duke of Gloucester's household, and she intrigues him in a way no woman has.

  When King Edward IV unexpectedly dies. Miles and Heloise find themselves at the heart of a power struggle as the mighty dukes of Gloucester and Buckingham manoeuvre ruthlessly to seize the crown. In a conspiracy that could have a lethal ending, can loyalty, that most elusive, fragile cornerstone of love, prevail?

  Perfect for fans of Philippa Gregory, Diana Gabaldon and Alison Weir.

  Contents

  About The Silver Bride

  Dedication

  Map

  The House Family Trees

  Introduction

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  List of Characters

  History Note

  Acknowledgements

  About Isolde Martyn

  Also by Isolde Martyn

  Copyright

  For my parents, Joyce and Fredy, with gratitude not only for their love but for nourishing the joy in history that has been so much part of my life.

  Introduction

  Readers of The Maiden and the Unicorn will meet some familiar historical figures in this story, which is set twelve years later in 1483.

  England is at peace and still ruled by the Yorkist king, Edward IV. He has given the north into the keeping of his competent brother, Richard of Gloucester, whose headquarters is at Middleham, north-west of York.

  Wales is being governed by the young Prince of Wales’s household at Ludlow under the leadership of the king’s brother-in-law, Lord Rivers. This is of considerable annoyance to twenty-nine-year-old Harry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, who resides at Brecknock [Brecon] in South Wales.

  It seems that the old battles between the houses of York and Lancaster are over. Or are they? Harry is very conscious of being a Plantagenet and having a distant claim to the throne; over in Brittany, Henry Tudor is waiting for a crack in the Yorkist solidarity; and nearly everyone dislikes the queen’s family.

  Heloise Ballaster, maid of honour to Gloucester’s duchess at Middleham, and Sir Miles Rushden, friend and adviser to Harry, are about to be ensnared in personal conflict as well as a deadly battle for the crown that could destroy them all.

  Prologue

  YULETIDE, JANUARY 1483, MIDDLEHAM, YORKSHIRE

  Packed like a row of spoons, the maids of honour to her grace of Gloucester snuggled together in the great bed for warmth against the icy wind howling across the moors of Wensleydale. It should have been impossible for a nightmare to insinuate itself amongst them, but Heloise Ballaster awoke as she hit the floor, bringing the candlestick crashing down with her and bruising her elbow on the wooden bedsteps.

  The shriek of her nearest neighbour awoke the others and four faces peered down at her from the edge of the coverlet, their braids dangling like a row of bellropes.

  ‘Your pardon,’ whispered Heloise ruefully, goosefleshed as she scrambled quickly back up into the high bed.

  ‘Was it him again?’ asked someone.

  The dream of an armoured knight, visor down, thundering towards her with a deadly lance aimed at her breast?

  ‘Yes. And I always fall. Why do I always fall?’

  ‘Mayhap it was not his lance he was aiming at you, Heloise,’ giggled the worldliest among them. ‘Maybe there is something you are not telling us.’

  There was.

  Heloise’s nightmares always came true.

  Chapter 1

  Bring us in no bacon, for that is passing fat,

  But bring us in the good ale and give us enough of that,

  And bring us in good ale!

  Bring us in good ale and bring us in good ale,

  For our Lady’s blessed sake, bring us in good ale.

  YULETIDE, YORKSHIRE 1483

  Tankards slammed bawdily upon the trestle tables and the great hall of the Duke of Gloucester’s castle at Middleham guffawed with Yorkist laughter as the cockatrice, a gaudy, four-legged monster with the head of a rooster and the tail of a crocodilus, capered round among the revellers. By rights, the legendary creature should have had a piglike rear, but no one could be bothered arguing. It staggered and swore with two voices as someone grabbed hold of its scaly tail.

  ‘Ouch!’ spluttered Heloise Ballaster, who was playing the head. She recovered her balance and craned the cumbersome beak round to see which drunken lout was impeding her progress. The merrymaking had become suddenly too boisterous and some of the more unruly youths were trying to discover who owned the cockatrice’s legs.

  ‘I’ll deal with this knave,’ exclaimed the cockatrice’s tail. Will, the duke’s jester, loosened his arms from Heloise’s waist and jabbed two fingers out the rear end of the costume into the fellow’s nose, and then he squirted the contents of a leather bladder after it. The onlookers collapsed in fits of raucous laughter as the esquire staggered back in humiliated surprise, his face dripping with pudding ale.

  ‘We must end this, Will!’ Heloise muttered, lurching away as a reveller tried to peer inside the beak. Thank heaven she wore a black mask as well. Yes, definitely time to make their exit. This prank was growing far too perilous. God’s mercy! If it should be discovered that one of the duchess’s maids of honour was prancing in doublet and hose with a man’s arms and face against her waist – not that the jester ever showed any interest in women – her virtue would be put to the question. Besides, it was not just fear of disgrace that was fraying her wits but a gnawing sense of evil about to happen.

  ‘Shall we make for the great chamber then, mistress? Mistress?’

  Heloise did not answer. She swayed as the rush of blood that precipitated a vision flooded her mind. Not now, please God, not now! But it came, unwanted – the nightmare image of the duke’s son choking for breath, writhing upon the floor.

  ‘Mistress?’ Will’s arms shook her back to the reality of the smoky hall. He turned her towards the dais, for the great chamber where they had left their outer garments lay beyond the high table – the high table where the duke’s heir, a giggling ten year old, was reaching out to a golden platter of wafers and sugar-coated almonds. Almonds that could choke a laughing child!

  ‘Jesu!’ Fear of discovery that the entire castle might shrink from her as a witch, warred with her duty. But how could she risk the life of Richard Gloucester’s precious son?

  ‘No,’ Heloise exclaimed. ‘No!’

  The cockatrice hurtled up the
hall, its rear staggering. It reared up to grab the platter of almonds, and tripped. Silver dishes skidded, sweetmeats flew as if magicked, goblets splashed their contents down the sumptuous cloth, the central trestle tumbled, crashing down the steps, and the duke and his guests sprang up.

  The music and the laughter stopped in mid-breath. Heloise, blanching behind her mask, took an anguished look at the coloured shards of costly glass spattering the tiles, and gazed up wretchedly at his grace’s astounded face. But the boy was safe. Uncertain, surprised, but beside his father, safe.

  Silence, growing more menacing by the instant, surrounded the grotesque cockatrice. Heloise backed into Will, wishing the floor would swallow her up. For an instant, it seemed to the onlookers that the monster’s back and front legs were trying to go in different directions, and then the creature shook itself into some sort of unison and charged out the nearest door.

  ‘That was impressive,’ commented a female voice, laced with humour. ‘We shall have to remember that for next year as well.’ Lady Margery Huddleston, the creator of the costume, had hastened after them into the great chamber. Briskly, she gripped the painted edifice that had been stifling Heloise and wriggled it free. Already there were raised voices beyond the door.

  Heloise blinked at her helplessly, wishing desperately that she might turn time backwards. How could she possibly explain? ‘I am sorry, madam. I am so sorry.’ Here was the last person she wished to anger: Margery, the duchess’s bastard half-sister, had been a good friend to her.

  ‘They will want to understand.’ Margery tilted her head towards the great hall. ‘I want to understand? God’s mercy, where …’ Scanning the chamber, she snatched up Heloise’s discarded overgown. ‘Quickly!’ Hastily, she tugged it over Heloise’s head, struggling to hide the shirt and borrowed hose just as the door opened.

  ‘Aye, Mistress Ballaster!’ exclaimed the jester, crawling with sweating pate and scarlet face from the beast’s entrails. ‘Would you care to explain what in hell you were about? Oh, lordy, here is the judge and jury.’

  Despite his thirty-one years, Duke Richard of Gloucester was not a tall man but, being a brother to the king, his authority gave him extra stature and he was looking stern enough to hang a man – or woman. His golden-brown eyes took in the discarded skin of yellow fustian, the scaled, flaccid tail, and rose questioningly to the scarlet-beaked head that his sister-in-law was hugging to her bosom. Margery gave a tiny shrug and the duke stared beyond her to his wife’s crumpled maid of honour.

  ‘Close the door!’ he ordered grimly.

  Heloise’s face burned with shame as his shocked gaze fell upon the ungirded gown with its collar slatternly awry, and the loosened ginger legs of the cockatrice that puddled around her ankles. Gravely, she removed her mask. At least her accursed hair, bonneted into a coif, was out of sight. They had been so courteous and decent to her, these people, and this was how she repaid them. All the warmth and respect she had sought to kindle in her few months at Middleham were turning to ashes. Controlled though it now was, Gloucester’s voice was like a lash to her already-bruised morale.

  ‘Since you seem to be the brains of this creature, mistress, perhaps you would care to enlighten me as to why you upset our table?’

  Others had followed the duke in, including the chamberlain and his grace’s chaplain, and she could hear an inebriated crowd gathering outside with the excitement of carrion crows anticipating a killing.

  ‘I thought my lord your son was about to choke.’ It was the truth. ‘I was wrong. I beg your pardon, your grace.’ Please do not send me home, your grace, her eyes beseeched him. Not to the beatings and the anger.

  ‘How could you discern such a thing?’ Dr Dokett, the chaplain, stepped forward, his huge black sleeves aflap with malevolence. ‘You were at the end of the hall. How could you possibly see?’

  ‘I …’ The right words evaded Heloise. How could she tell these noblemen of her premonitions without making them loathe her, fear her? Even Duke Richard, sensible as he was, would send her away. People did not want to hear. It terrified them. Dear God, it terrified her.

  Then suddenly there was shouting and the oaken door was wrenched open. The throng crowding its portals separated as Anne, Duchess of Gloucester, eyes awash with tears, pushed through to sag against the doorway.

  ‘What is it?’ Gloucester asked, his voice serrated with the edge of sudden fear.

  ‘Our son,’ whispered the duchess, fingers pressed against her lips. ‘He choked on a sugared almond, but Richard Huddleston turned him upside down, thank God, and he is restored. Oh, my dearest lord.’ With a sob of relief, she flew across the chamber to the comfort of her husband’s arms. Although Gloucester lovingly stroked the back of his fingers down his wife’s cheek, above her head he was staring at Heloise. ‘When? Just now?’ he asked his duchess.

  ‘It was probably the excitement. Foolish child.’ Anne of Gloucester raised her head cheerfully, knuckling her tears away, and then she sensed the tension around her and recognised Heloise and Lady Margery, snared in the midst of it. ‘Let us not spoil the feast,’ she said quietly, receiving a plea from her half-sister. ‘I pray you, my lords, let us return to the merrymaking.’

  The duke hesitated, confusion behind his frowning brow. The duchess drew him away, but he was still glancing back at Heloise as the company thronging the dais drew aside deferentially to let their lord and lady pass.

  ‘Cockatrice!’ sneered Dr Dokett, delaying to cast an evil look at Lady Margery and her accomplices. He drove a sandalled foot savagely into the belly of the carcass. ‘A work of the Devil! And that foul Fiend already has your soul! Cavorting shamelessly, and you a maid. You should be dismissed!’ He hurled the words at Heloise like salt over his shoulder, as though she were a demon.

  Perhaps, thought Heloise, shaken by the ugly hatred, perhaps she was.

  *

  It was a while before the duchess’s newest maid of honour had a chance to leave the sullen jester and a pensive Lady Margery Huddleston in the great chamber. With her gown belted and her veil and cap back in place over her coif, Heloise stole out through the side entrance of the great chamber and down the stairs to the torch-lit castle bailey. Frosty, smoke-laden air enveloped her, but she desperately needed solitude and the shadow of night would hide her.

  Climb back into the saddle, Margery had advised, face them! But Heloise’s usual bravery was at a low ebb. The ache of foreboding was still with her, duller now – the certainty that the chaplain would ensure she became despised. All her delight in life at the castle was gone. Her fate would be to return home a failure and an outcast, to a lifetime of recriminations from her father. For just a little space, back there in the hall, inside the cockatrice, she had felt such confidence. But now …

  Leaning her shoulder against the cold stone wall, she tried to understand. Had the faeries sent her the premonition? But why, if someone else had been meant to save the boy? Or, worse, was she the Devil’s instrument? Had her action caused the child to choke? Yet, forewarned, how else could she have acted? But the cost? Oh Blessed Christ, the cost! Why could she not have been born ordinary? Even the grinding labour of a kitchen wench was better than this wretchedness; a scullion would sink into her cot too worn to dream. Why have you done this to me? her mind called out in pain. But neither God, the Devil nor the faeries answered.

  She must have lingered outside for longer than she realised, not heeding the cold in her despair, when a young man’s voice close by jerked her to her full senses.

  ‘Mistress Ballaster.’ The vapour from the unexpected words hung in the freezing air. The moonlight lit the face of Piers Harrington, one of the esquires. ‘Why were you not at the feasting, mistress?’ A warm hand fastened round her wrist. ‘Still, no matter, it’s my good fortune that you are here now.’ He might not have seen the cockatrice wreaking disaster, but a chance assignation was the last thing Heloise could stomach.

  ‘Your pardon, Master Harrington, I cannot stay.’ She was s
hivering, both with cold and the guilt of how unseemly it would be if they were noticed – another arrow to be loaded into the priest’s quiver of complaints, especially as Harrington was the chaplain’s nephew.

  ‘What? No reward for finding you, lovely Heloise?’ His tone was slurred but drink had not slowed his wits. In an instant, his arms were caging her against the wall.

  ‘Another time, sir.’ Heloise kept her voice amiable and ducked, but two hands thrust her back. His body pinioned her; unfeeling stone pressed against her back. This was not the love that the minstrels sang about. Being fumbled by a wine-reeking youth. Any maidenly fantasy she might have cherished of stolen meetings with an adoring lover now perished. Was this reality? And to think she once had weighed Harrington as a potential husband.

  ‘Stop that, Master Harrington,’ she hissed, slapping at his adventurous hands and dipping her face to escape his breath.

  ‘Damn this!’ He snatched at the wire and tisshew veil of her butterfly headdress, which was crowding his face, and wrenched her cap and coif away. Heloise turned into a Fury; fists, elbows and toes beat, jabbed and kicked him.

  ‘There is no shame in kissing a man,’ he laughed, lunging in again, and then miraculously there were footsteps and an unseen force lifted the youth into the air and heaved him aside, but not before Harrington had glimpsed her loosened hair. The full moon betrayed her. A stable oath ripped through the air, and he was gone.

  *

  ‘Drink this.’

  Margery pressed a beaker of mulled wine into Heloise’s frozen hands and tugged the furred wrap closely about her shoulders. ‘It was a prank, for God’s sake. Her grace will not send you away for that. And the little lord has sworn to my husband that you are not to blame. He was laughing at a page’s antics when he choked.’