The Sunne in Splendour: A Novel of Richard III Read Free

the great hall. Reining in before her, Edmund swung Richard down and into her upraised arms. As he did, he flashed Richard a grin and Richard was able to derive a flicker of comfort from that, the awareness that he, for once, had won Edmund's unqualified approval.
RICHARD was sitting on a table in the solar, so close to the east-wall fireplace that the heat from its flames gave his face a sunburnt flush. He winced as his mother swabbed with wine-saturated linen at the scratches upon his face and throat, but submitted without complaint to her ministrations. He was rather pleased, in fact, to so thoroughly command her attention; he could remember few occasions when she had treated his bruises with her own hand. Generally this would have been for Joan to do. But Joan was too shaken to be of assistance. Eyes reddened and swollen, she hovered in the background, from time to time reaching out to touch Richard's hair, as tentatively as if she were daring a liberty that was of a sudden forbidden.
    Richard smiled at her with his eyes, quite flattered that she should have been crying so on his behalf, but she seemed little consoled by his sympathy and when he'd explained, rather haltingly, to his mother that he'd become separated from Ned and Joan in pursuit of his fox cub, Joan inexplicably began to cry again.
"I heard you're to be locked in the cellar under the great hall as your punishment ... in the dark with the rats!"
His brother George had sidled nearer, awaiting the chance to speak as soon as their mother moved away from the table. He was watching Richard now with intent blue-green eyes, and Richard tried to conceal his involuntary shudder. He had no intention of letting George know he had a morbid horror of rats, aware that if he did, he was all too likely to find one in his bed.
Edmund came to his rescue, leaning over George to offer Richard a sip from his own cup of mulled wine.
"Mind your mouth, George," he said softly. "Or you might find yourself taking a tour of the cellar some night."
George glared at Edmund but did not venture a response, for he was not all that certain Edmund wouldn't, if sufficiently provoked, follow through with his threat. Playing it safe, he held his tongue;
although still a month shy of his tenth birthday, George had already developed a sophisticated sense of self-preservation.
Setting Edmund's cup down so abruptly that wine sloshed over onto the table, Richard slid hastily to the floor. He had at last heard the one voice he'd been waiting for.
Edward was dismounting before the round Norman nave that housed the chapel named for St Mary
Magdalene. He saw Richard as the boy bolted through the doorway of the solar and in three strides he covered the ground between them, catching Richard to him in a tight bone-bruising embrace and then laughing and swinging the youngster up into the air, high over his head.
"Jesu, but you did give me some bad moments, lad! Be you all right?"
"He's fine." Edmund had come through the doorway behind Richard, and now stood looking down at them as Edward knelt beside Richard in the dust. His eyes raked Edward with ironic amusement and a message flashed between them that passed, figuratively and literally, over Richard's head.
"He's fine," Edmund repeated, "but I daresay he'll be taken severely to task for running off as he did. It seems he became lost chasing after that damned pet fox of his. But then, I needn't tell you that, do I, Ned? After all, you were there."
    "That's right," Edward said coolly. "I was." His mouth twitched and then, as if on cue, he and Edmund were laughing. Coming lightly to his feet, Edward kept his arm warm around Richard's shoulders as they moved across the bailey, murmuring, "Fox hunting, were you?"
His voice was noncommittal and Richard nodded shyly, keeping his eyes upon Edward's face.
"Well . . . you might not be too good at keeping put, Dickon, but you're very good, indeed, at keeping faith!" Edward said softly, and meeting Richard's eyes, he