who saluted Sir John. As we rode through, one of them shouted a bawdy comment about the knight’s ‘saddle-doxy’ which Sir John studiously ignored but which had the effect of breaking the tense silence that had developed between us.
‘I must apologize for the guards’ uncouth manners, my lady,’ he said when out of their earshot. ‘They do not recognize you or they would not dare.’
‘Whose men are they?’ I asked. ‘And what castle is this?’
‘It is Witton Castle, held by Sir Ralph Eure, a tenant of my brother the earl. We have just crossed the River Wear.’
‘Only half way to Brancepeth then?’ I glanced at the western sky, where clouds were already blushing faintly pink.
I could not see Sir John’s face but I felt him tense in the saddle. ‘Yes, we make slow progress – too slow for my liking.’ He turned to beckon the squire forward. ‘Take the reivers to the captain at the Witton guardhouse, Tam. Sir Ralph can keep them in his prison until the session judge comes to Durham. We will water the horses while you sort it out.’
I watched the old reiver, the wizened man who had earlier held the reins of my mare, as he stumbled away behind the sumpter horse. No longer grinning, he now looked weary and desperate. I thought he would be grateful to sit down, even in a stinking dungeon, and very nearly summoned a pang of sympathy, until I remembered his sinister remark about me doing a dance. There was no doubt in my mind that he would have had no sympathy for me had I been subjected to whatever pain or humiliation ‘dance’ was a euphemism for. At least I had escaped the ‘dance’, whatever the unknown future I was riding into might have in store.
Presently we joined a well-trodden highway where a milestone indicated seven miles to the city of Durham, and I knew that we were nearing Brancepeth. This was mining country and the high moor above the road to the north was peppered with numerous adits, holes that had been opened into the hillside, and a web of paths leading between them, worn by the feet of miners and the wheels of the carts. They wove a pattern across the winter-brown grass of the slopes down to the river where the coal was brought for transport to the coast. I knew that these mines were an important source of income to the Brancepeth estate; without them the earl would have been even more impoverished than he claimed to be.
Before the end of our journey I became sleepy and, despite my best efforts, must have slumped back against my companion who punctiliously nudged me upright again. ‘Take care you do not slumber, my lady, in case you fall from the horse,’ he said. ‘It is not far now.’
‘Talk to me then,’ I urged irritably. ‘Tell me why you happened to be riding that drover’s track when you rescued me from the reivers.’
I thought he was going to maintain his stubborn silence because there was a lengthy pause before he launched into his reply. ‘The young man, Tam, who found your hat, is the Clifford heir and a ward of the earl’s. We had been attending a Halmote – a manor court – at Brough Castle and, if you want the truth, we always take the high route over the moors because that way we avoid crossing Raby lands. Surely you must realize that the sight of your home is like a red rag to the Nevilles of Brancepeth.’
Despite the grim tone of his remark I smiled, thinking of the black bull badge on his chest. ‘A red rag to a bull; yes, I see.’
‘No!’ His voice was angry. ‘I doubt if you do see, Lady Cicely. My brother is the second Earl of Westmorland – your father’s heir. Yet he has been deprived of the heir’s rightful inheritance. He should have tenure of the entire legacy of Westmorland – all its lands and all its castles. All of them – and the income they provide. And it should be up to him as their lord how those lands and castles are occupied and stewarded. Instead he was left only one seat – Brancepeth – and not even enough manors to provide his immediate family with homes and livelihoods. He and his dependents have been slighted and disinherited by your overweening, greedy mother.’
Now it was my turn to be angry. True, my mother was proud and sometimes haughty but she was a great lady of royal blood, a granddaughter of King Edward the Third, and I could not brook her being held in contempt. ‘My mother has served the honour of Westmorland more profitably than any of the present earl’s family and it is hardly chivalrous to speak thus of a great lady, Sir John.’ I laid particular stress on the ‘sir’.
‘Which is why it is better if we do not speak at all,’ the knight snapped back.
After this a heavy silence prevailed once more until we came within sight of our destination. I knew the history of Brancepeth from my childhood lessons. An advantageous union three hundred years ago had brought the manor and its castle into the Neville family when Geoffrey de Neville, grandson of William of Normandy’s Admiral of the Fleet, had married Emma, the heiress of Bertram Bulmer of Brancepeth. Heraldic wordplay on the Bulmer name had brought the black bull device into the Neville crest. It was an alliance which had marked the start of Neville dominance over the sprawling County Palatine of Durham. Many times had the warlike Prince Bishops of Durham taken up arms to defend the English border against the Scots, but bishops came and went by papal appointment, whereas succeeding generations of Nevilles had dug their roots deep into the denes and dales, establishing themselves among the clutch of great marcher clans on which successive kings of England relied to defend the northern fringes of their realm.
Brancepeth was a four-square fortress; its thirty-foot-high curtain enclosed a hall, chapel and bailey with a sturdy tower at each corner and a formidable gatehouse protected by stout barbicans. Defensively perched on the edge of a steep-sided dene or gorge, through which a fast stream flowed, its ochre-coloured stone was blackened by soot from burning the coal mined on its demesne and it loomed dark and grim in the deepening twilight. We approached through a closed and quiet village, where I could picture the villeins clustered around their hearths, filling their bellies with their evening meal. My own stomach rumbled at the thought. Only a few spluttering torches lit our way under the gatehouse into a flagged courtyard where a flight of steps led to the arched entrance of the great hall. There was a loud rattle of chains as the drawbridge was raised behind us; a sinister sound in the gathering gloom.
Sir John dismounted and helped me to do so, speaking to an eager page who had rushed forward to hold his stirrup. ‘Tell the countess there is a guest. Lady Cicely Neville. I will bring her to the hall.’
As the page hurried away up the steps I saw a mop-headed little boy wriggle from the clutches of his nursemaid and scurry towards us, ducking and weaving through the confusion of horses and men, his little face bright with curiosity.
‘You have brought a visitor, Uncle,’ he said in a high, sibilant voice. ‘Who is she?’
With a frisson of pleasure, despite myself, I saw the knight’s transforming smile once more as he greeted the boy with an affectionate cuff on the shoulder and a mild rebuke. ‘Where are your manners, Jack? Make your best bow to your kinswoman Lady Cicely Neville, and then you may take my helmet to the armoury.’
Pink-faced, the boy bent his knee and bowed his head to me, shyly keeping his eyes lowered. I guessed he must be the heir of Westmorland, whose birth I remembered being discussed with some surprise at Raby – surprise because it demonstrated that the earl, commonly described as a cripple, was not entirely disabled. The little boy proudly took the proffered helmet and carried it away, staggering slightly under its weight, and Sir John and I both watched his progress. He was closely followed by Tam Clifford leading the laden sumpter and the knight’s weary warhorse to the stable, a long timber structure built against the high perimeter wall.
All around us was clatter and chatter as the retinue dismounted and began leading their horses away. Reverting once more to cool courtesy, Sir John indicated the narrow stone
