Chapter 11
Fall 1473
When the Earl of Oxford's rebels moved into Cornwall, it was Richard whom Edward turned to.
Most saw nothing of significance in that; the Duke of Gloucester was a respected commander. But so was George of Clarence, and Edward seemed to want him nowhere near the battle.
Richard had no inkling whether Edward's suspicions of George's intentions were correct, or simply a grudge based on offenses that the King had said he had long-since pardoned. George seemed open with his brothers, but then again, Richard likely seemed open to others. There was no way of knowing a man's secret heart.
He accepted the assignment without complaint. Richard was formed for war, not for wiling away the days in a palace. And Edward would find some small way to reward him for his pains.
And of course, a campaign carried other benefits. Buckingham would be his second-in-command, and the blood they made flow would cement them as not just cousins, but brothers. Not that Richard knew precisely what he would do with that bond, but perhaps that was for the best. A long friendship would create more loyalty than a hasty alliance toward a particular end.
00000000
Kate was never sure if she was mad, or everyone else was.
The other women didn't seem the slightest bit perturbed that their men were heading to war again, while Kate, who had no one, had to stop herself from pulling her hair out. Even the sight of the soldiers mustering below their windows made her heart ache. Some would die, and some of those deaths would be terrible, like the man whose tender insides were already exposed to the insects before he had breathed his last.
She prayed constantly that there might be some other way. That the rebels would simply go back to where they'd been hiding in Scotland, or that the King would offer them some sort of peace agreement. And that, if it was not the Lord's will to spare them, as little blood be shed as possible. And that her friend Gloucester would return alive and whole.
"Thou must find a way to calm thyself," Anne Neville admonished her, but she couldn't. She kept seeing those men, hacked apart, or simply drained of their life's blood. And there was nothing she could do to protect anyone.
Or perhaps there was.
Kate couldn't rightly say why she thought it was important to give Thomas' cross to Catesby to pass along to the Duke. She only felt, with a fire in her soul, that it was.
"Tell him whatever seems meet," she said to the bewildered messenger. "But not that I gave it to you." She knew that what she was doing was deeply improper. A gentleman could ask a lady to bear a token into battle if he wished to woo her. For a girl of no station to offer one to a duke was unseemly, at best. Nonetheless, it would do no real harm, and it might help. At least, it would allow her to sleep better, knowing she had given her friend the only protection she could.