Free To the Tower Born - Robin Maxwell

voice low. “Prince Edward wrongly believes Gloucester was responsible for his uncle Clarence’s execution.”
    “Do you not think it curious,” Lady Margaret said, clearly pleased with Nell’s engagement, continuing the conversation as though the two women were equals, “that the king has not made his own complicity in Clarence’s execution clear to his son? That it was he who ordered it. Why would he wish the boy to so mislike his only remaining brother?”
    Nell thought carefully before leaning close to Lady Margaret’s ear and speaking softly. “Perhaps the king has given it no thought.”
    “Does he not care that Prince Edward’s hatred of Gloucester deeply grieves his brother?” Margaret persisted.
    “Perhaps he is unaware of his son’s perceptions,” Nell suggested.
    “Unaware? But how can a King of England be so blithely igno-rant?”
    Nell was suddenly conscious that she was being led into a subtle trap. The answer, if she were to utter it, was that King Edward was so sodden with drink and debauchery that his faculties were suffering. And that idea spoken aloud was treasonous.
    Nell had caught herself in time, but wondered at Lady Margaret’s ambush.
    “Ignorant? Not at all,” said Nell. “Gloucester has himself refused to burden his brother with the problem. And the prince has not complained openly. Those around the king may have reasons of their own for perpetuating this misunder-standing.”
    Lady Margaret regarded Nell closely and her lips twisted into something that might have been called a smile. “You are a very clever girl, Mistress Caxton.”
    “Thank you, Lady Margaret.”
    The musicians struck up the first chord of a pavane, and with that, the older woman turned away, finished with Nell, and began speaking with her husband, Lord Stanley, who sat at her left.
    Nell was quite overcome. First an offer of employment to tutor the future King of England. Now a mental challenge and a compliment from the shrewdest woman in England. Oh, how she longed to speak to Bessie!
    “Nell.”
    She turned to see Lord Rivers standing behind her with his upturned hand outstretched. “Will you dance with me?” She exhaled once to calm herself, then took his hand.
    “ ’Twould be my pleasure.”
    . . .
    Whilst Nell had been Princess Bessie’s close—nay, inseparable— friend since the return with Nell’s father from Bruges six years before, and whilst Mistress Caxton had been many times invited to Westminster Court, she had never experienced the magnificence and excitement of a royal family gathering such as this. Indeed, she had never dreamed of being so warmly embraced by the Yorks. Besides Bessie, the king, queen, the princes Edward and Dickon, and Lord Rivers had treated her like nothing less than royalty.
    Since their arrival in Wales, Nell had partaken of hunts, both on horseback and from blinds. Even a “wild-goose chase” with everyone racing on their mounts single file through the Ludlow Greenwood. Every meal was eaten together, dinners and suppers, each a sumptuous feast, invariably accompanied by music and dancing, jugglers and acrobats, and all manner of entertainments.
    Every night the girls, happily exhausted, would retire to Bessie’s bedchamber. They chattered about the day’s events as maids undressed them, slipped nightgowns over their heads, and they never stopped talking as they were tucked into the luxurious canopied bed laid with the finest lawn sheets and richest lace-and-velvet coverlets. They chattered for so long and so incessantly that sometimes the sun was rising before they’d finally fallen asleep.
    “Your father does love his brother Richard well,” said Nell one night. “Have they always been so close?”
    “Since they were young boys. My grandfather’s death brought them closer still.”
    “Your grandfather, the Duke of York?”
    Bessie nodded.
    “Now, there was a powermonger,” Nell observed.
    “No more so than Lady Anne’s father, Warwick,” Bessie