The Seventh Son

by Reay Tannahill

Genres: General Fiction; Historical Fiction

Synopsis

Reay Tannahill's enthralling new novel is a family saga in the grand tradition, a tale of brother against brother, cousin against cousin, of love, hate and intrigue, of women inescapably entangled in the fates of their men, and of a mystery that has exercised people's minds for more than five hundred years. At the heart of it all is the dangerous, complex human being known to history as Richard III, here brought vividly alive in Reay Tannahill's expert hands - in his private life cool and sardonic, marrying for gain but learning to love, capable of inspiring great loyalty, and discovering too late that he can be ruled by emotions he is scarcely aware of possessing; in his public life, bold, competent and tireless in pursuit of profit and power, making enemies more easily than friends, and himself in the end falling victim to the most devoted of those enemies - the mother of the king who is to succeed him, Henry VII. Here, in all its vivid colour, its rich and absorbing detail, is the story of an extended family in mediaeval England. Here, too, is tragedy. For centuries, Richard has been held guilty of murdering the Princes in the Tower. Reay Tannahill offers a less conventional solution in what is perhaps the best and without doubt the most moving novel she has yet written.

Release date: September 1, 2002

Publisher: Headline Book Pub Ltd

Print pages: 448

Sample

Some readers like to go straight into a novel, others – especially where history is concerned – prefer to know exactly where they are before they begin. This page and the next are intended for those of the latter persuasion. The former can safely skip them, since most of the information is also contained in the book’s text, distributed on a need-to-know basis.

What were the Wars of the Roses all about?

The foundations of the fifteenth-century Wars of the Roses were laid a century beforehand when King Edward III of England (1312-1377) fathered five sons. The eldest was Prince Edward, known as the Black Prince, while the younger, in order of seniority, were the dukes of Clarence, Lancaster, York, and Gloucester. The two eldest sons, Prince Edward and the duke of Clarence, both died before their father, Prince Edward leaving one son of his own, who duly succeeded to the throne as Richard II, and the duke of Clarence leaving only a daughter.

During the quarter-century after Edward III’s death, the legitimate heir Richard II was deposed and murdered by his cousin Henry, who was the child of Edward’s third son, the duke of Lancaster, and who ascended the throne as Henry IV.

King Henry IV and his successors, Henry V and Henry VI, were thus known as Lancastrians, their house coming to be symbolised by the red rose.

Henry VI was gentle, spiritual and politically incompetent, a king who by the 1450s seemed to invite overthrow. And there was a rival prepared to make the attempt – Richard, duke of York, who had almost as good a claim to the succession as Henry, being descended on his father’s side from Edward III’s fourth son, and on his mother’s from Edward’s second son. The Yorkist symbol came to be the white rose.

Before the book opens …

In the last days of 1460, the duke of York and his second son, Edmund, were killed in battle against a royal army composed mostly of northerners and controlled by Henry VI’s queen, the dazzling and formidable Margaret of Anjou, but within a few weeks they had been avenged by Edward, the 19-year-old eldest of York’s sons, who sealed his triumph by having the defeated Henry VI deposed and imprisoned, and being declared king in his stead as Edward IV.

Edward’s first decade as king was unsettled, ending in exile after his betrayal both by the man who had originally helped him to his throne – Richard Neville, earl of Warwick – and by his own brother, George, duke of Clarence. By the spring of 1471, however, Edward had returned from exile and recovered the throne, with Henry VI and Warwick both dead and Margaret of Anjou’s armies decisively defeated.

George, duke of Clarence, made his submission to Edward and was welcomed back and rewarded, but it was the youngest of the three brothers – eighteen-year-old Richard, duke of Gloucester, who had remained loyal throughout – in whom Edward now reposed his trust, endowing him with important political and administrative responsibilities.

Now read on …

‘SAPPHIRES for my bride-to-be and a severed head for the king my brother,’ said Duke Richard cheerfully. ‘As St Paul pointed out, gifts may vary but the spirit is the same. In the present instance, a spirit of goodwill.’

Francis Lovell, on horseback beside him, gave a faint splutter of laughter. Although not as well versed in the scriptures as Richard, he doubted whether the kind of gifts St Paul had had in mind would have included a head, newly detached from the body of a traitor and then parboiled with bay salt to preserve it for its journey to London. But Richard’s brother, the king, would no doubt receive it with gratitude and order it to be impaled on London Bridge as a warning to others who might think of betraying his trust.

Richard, as if he knew what Francis was thinking – which he probably did – grinned at him. Then, suddenly, he knitted his brows. ‘I’ve just thought of something. Anne does have blue eyes, doesn’t she?’

He had known his bride-to-be for half a dozen years but Francis nobly refrained from pointing it out and merely said, ‘Yes, she does. The sapphires will suit her very well.’

Richard was not in the least abashed. ‘Oh, good.’

‘Now,’ he glanced round the courtyard of the tall stone keep that was Middleham castle and raised a gauntletted hand in a signal to his Master of the Horse. The high curtain wall of the castle had the effect not only of concentrating the pungent smells of the hundred mounted and liveried men milling around in the courtyard but of amplifying the gossiping voices, the clanking of arms, and the whinnying of horses into something resembling war in heaven. ‘Let us go before we all suffocate or become deaf beyond hope of redemption.’

Since everyone knew that the young duke of Gloucester did not like to be kept waiting, there was an immediate flourish of trumpets calling the escort to order and the chaos of a moment before transformed itself into an orderly file moving out through the gatehouse, across the drawbridge, and downhill towards the river crossing that would take them into the heart of the Yorkshire Dales.

THE SEPTEMBER LANDSCAPE came as a relief to the senses, wide and clean and austere under the morning sun, a gentle wind blowing the scents of warm moorland to the riders’ nostrils even though early frosts had already tinged the grass with amber and the bracken with scarlet. Small flocks of migrating birds fluttered restlessly over the rugged hillsides, their calls drowned by the disciplined clamour of Richard’s escort – gentlemen, yeomen and grooms, all wearing his badge of a white boar on their sleeves. The trumpeter, leading the cavalcade, raised his head every few moments to shatter the air with a series of blasts designed to advertise his master’s coming to the dozen miles of empty valley that lay ahead of them.

‘His enthusiasm will soon wear off,’ Richard said absently after half an hour, then, ‘Look,’ he went on, his eyes on a small scythe-winged hawk skimming over the trees along the river bank, ‘a hobby falcon. That explains why all the little birds have vanished into cover. What is a hobby doing as far north as this, I wonder?’ Hawking was one of Richard’s passions.

War was the other, and Francis, with the optimism of his sixteen years, expected that Richard, two years his senior, would grow out of it now that the country was at peace, now that the House of York had finally triumphed over that of Lancaster.

It was hard to imagine an England no longer at war with itself, but Francis, a gentle soul despite the knightly upbringing he had shared with Richard, could think of few prospects more pleasing.

IT TOOK THEM ten days, pushing along at Richard’s usual ferocious pace, to reach London, and at what felt like every league along the way there was a battlefield to serve as a reminder of the late wars, the wars that had transformed Richard from the insignificant youngest son of a rebel lord into a royal duke, brother of England’s now undisputed king, Edward IV.

Richard had fought in Edward’s last two, decisive battles at Barnet and Tewkesbury and, as a reward, had been appointed as the king’s representative in the north of England.

Francis knew that he was having some difficulty in establishing his authority and convincing the dour northerners that he was one of them at heart. It was his primary reason for wanting to marry Anne, whose family had dominated the north for more years than anyone cared to remember. Although her father, Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, had become the late earl of Warwick as a consequence of betraying Edward, most northerners remained loyal to the Nevilles. By marrying Anne, Richard hoped to buy their loyalty or, at the very least, their acceptance. He also had his eye on the Warwick estates.

But Edward’s and Richard’s self-centred middle brother, George, duke of Clarence, was making difficulties. Already married to Anne’s elder sister, Isabel, George was determined to claim the Warwick estates for himself.

It was not hard to tell that George’s intransigence was very much on Richard’s mind as they rode south, and when they reached Coventry he regaled Francis with the tale of what had happened when he had last seen the place a few months earlier. It had been there that George, until then in treasonable alliance with Warwick – who had set him up as a potential alternative king – had seen the error of his ways and decided to make his submission to Edward.

‘If it could be called submission,’ remarked Richard caustically. ‘Certainly, he went down on his knees. Certainly, he brought with him four thousand men he had raised in the West country to reinforce Edward’s army. Certainly, he promised to be a good boy in future. But at no point did he bend his neck. My brother the king, however, chose to let it pass. It is his habit to be generous and forgiving, to think well of people …’

‘Or to hope for the best,’ Francis murmured under his breath.

‘… until they give him an unequivocal reason to think otherwise. I hope George will have enough sense to behave himself.’

It was said in a tone suggesting that Richard thought it unlikely. Brotherly love had never been a feature of his and George’s relationship. George was big, handsome and utterly unreliable except in terms of his own self-interest, and Francis knew that there was going to be a major clash between the two when Richard reached London.

A clash over the marriage on which Richard was determined.

IN THE CITY of London, in the Great Hall of the mansion close by St Paul’s where her father had lived in a style famous for its ostentation, fifteen-year-old Anne Neville said, ‘But I don’t see why not. Richard would be a very good match for me.’ She glanced up uncertainly. ‘Wouldn’t he?’

Anne was small, fair and fragile, and George, duke of Clarence, was very large. It made her nervous.

‘No.’

‘I don’t know why you’re against it. I want to marry him and he wants to marry me. And the king has given his permission.’

Her brother-in-law said austerely, ‘It’s a matter of property and family alliances. It’s complicated and you wouldn’t understand, even if I explained it to you. Anyway, it is not for you to decide who you should marry.’

He really was the most exasperating man. ‘But I have to marry someone! And soon! I’ve been a widow for four whole months. I quite like Richard, and if I don’t marry him, you or the king might make me marry someone I don’t like at all.’

She forced herself to gaze up at George beseechingly. His good looks, height and splendid physique gave him a presence almost as striking as that of his brother the king, but his charm was a more debatable quantity. Indeed, ‘domineering’ was the word that had sprung to Anne’s mind the first time she had met him and nothing had caused her to change her opinion since. She couldn’t imagine how Isabel, compliant though she was, could bear to live with him.

As usual, he resorted to repeating himself, as if saying something often enough gave it the force of revealed truth. ‘This is a most improper conversation. Who you marry is no concern of yours. Marriage is a business arrangement. Liking people doesn’t enter into it.’

Anne was a sweet-natured and amenable girl who was quite used to being ordered around in the interests of property and family alliances, even if she was getting rather tired of it. Her father, fearsomely ambitious, had married Isabel off to George because it had seemed to him advantageous to be father-in-law to King Edward’s brother and heir. Unfortunately, the king had disagreed, and there had been a general falling out.

Her father, undismayed, had therefore arranged for Anne herself to be married to the son of the king from whom Edward had usurped the crown, Henry VI. He and George had then succeeded in driving Edward into exile and restoring the imprisoned Henry VI to the throne.

George hadn’t liked Henry’s restoration at all, because it had reduced him from being the king’s brother and heir to just an ordinary member of the nobility. So he had transferred his allegiance back to Edward when his brother had reappeared from exile.

Edward had regained the throne, and George behaved as if his own double dealing had been all that had made it possible. It didn’t, of course, occur to him that Isabel and Anne might not take kindly to his boasting about how clever he had been in bringing about the deaths of their father, the earl of Warwick; Anne’s husband, the prince of Wales; and her father-in-law, the saintly and incompetent King Henry VI.

Anne sighed. She did want to marry someone she liked this time because, truthfully, she hadn’t in the least enjoyed being married to the prince of Wales who, exciting at first, had turned out to be as arrogant and objectionable as he was goodlooking, always waving a sword around and talking about the traitors he intended to slaughter. He had been seventeen when he was killed at the battle of Tewkesbury in May. Anne didn’t think he would have made a very good king if he had survived.

George said, ‘Anyway, I can’t imagine why you like Richard. He’s fathered two bastards to my certain knowledge and there’s a lot of unpleasant gossip about him. I have it on good authority that it was he who cut down your husband when he was fleeing from the field at Tewkesbury. And it was he who ordered Somerset and the others to be dragged out of sanctuary in the abbey and executed a few days later. And afterwards, he was at the Tower of London when King Henry died, and when he later went to see the body lying in state at the Black Friars it began to bleed again. And you know what that means!’

Corpses were known to bleed afresh in the presence of their murderer. Anne frowned. ‘But you were …’ she began, and then saw that Isabel was biting her lip and giving a tiny, sharp shake of her head that conveyed as clearly as words, ‘Don’t say it!’

So, instead of going on, ‘You were there, too, when King Henry died,’ she said, ‘I don’t know who killed my husband, of course, but killing people is what battles are about. And it was Richard’s duty as Constable of England to execute traitors like Somerset. And if King Edward didn’t blame him for that, I don’t see why you should.’

She couldn’t believe she was standing up to George like this but, on the principle that she might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb, went on, her delicate complexion heightened, ‘Anyway, men always do that kind of thing. My father often executed people he didn’t like, and he didn’t have the excuse of acting on the king’s behalf. And even if Richard did all those things, which I don’t believe, he probably did them because the king told him to.’

There was a vibrating silence. George, his face scarlet, scrutinised the magnificently carved, painted and gilded ceiling while Isabel went back to her embroidery – a sash with George’s heraldic emblem of a bull, endlessly repeated – and began stitching away as if her life depended on it.

‘That is quite enough,’ George said at last.

‘Yes, George.’

‘The king has confided you to my care, and I will not permit you to marry the duke of Gloucester.’

‘But …’ It was a stupid situation. The king had given Richard permission to marry her, but her guardian – the king’s other brother – was determined that he shouldn’t. She couldn’t guess how it was all going to end, but there was nothing she could do to influence events. Wearily, she said, ‘No, George.’

He couldn’t bear not to have the last word. Looking down at her, he said, ‘And don’t delude yourself that he has any feelings for you. He only wants to marry you for your property and family connections.’

It took her a great effort of will to resist the desire to shriek, ‘But that is what you keep telling me marriage is supposed to be about!’

TOWCESTER, St Albans, Barnet …

‘Only T-t-tewkesbury missing,’ Francis volunteered as they descended Highgate Hill and saw the whole of London spread out before them, its skyline dominated by St Paul’s and a forest of church towers and spires. Londoners were nothing if not supportive of their religion.

Richard looked blank for a moment, and then said, ‘Well, we’re not going all the way round by the west just for the pleasure of revisiting yet another battlefield.’ It was one of his more endearing traits that, unlike many people, he never laughed at Francis’s occasional stammer, or showed contempt or impatience, or tried to help him out. He had said once, ‘You’ll probably grow out of it when you accept that there’s nothing wrong with being more of a scholar than a warrior.’ Francis had blushed – something else he hoped he would grow out of, although at present all he seemed to be growing out of was his clothes.

‘As it happens,’ Richard said now, ‘I wasn’t thinking of battles. I was remembering ten years ago when my brother made his formal entry into London for his coronation. I was eight and George was eleven, and Edward had just inducted us as Knights of the Bath, so we rode in the procession to Westminster in our beautiful new blue gowns with their white silk trimmings and felt very mature and important.’

‘Were there minstrels, and cloth-of-gold, and c-c-conduits flowing with wine?’

‘Of course! No expense spared. Fortunately, the city merchants paid for most of it. Unfortunately, they didn’t repeat the effect when Edward made his ceremonial re-entry last April. It wasn’t parsimony, as it happens, just that they always prefer to be on the winning side, and this time they’d taken too long arguing over which the winning side was likely to be to have time to arrange for the pageantry. Wine and cloth-of-gold would have been wasted on Henry if things had gone the other way.’

‘Does your b-b-brother hold it against them?’

‘No, he can’t afford to. Too much depends on his being able to borrow money from them.’

There was no hint of criticism in his voice, but Francis couldn’t resist saying, ‘Whereas you detest being beholden to anyone.’

Richard gave a shadowy smile and evaded the issue. ‘The immediate question is, whom shall we go and visit first. Brother Edward? Or brother George?’

THE QUEEN SAID, ‘As you know, my lord, I cannot love your brothers as dearly as you do yourself …’

‘Naturally not,’ the king replied abstractedly, his mind on the problem of how to finance his proposed invasion of France. ‘Don’t you have any ideas, Hastings?’

Hastings, the friend and mentor who held the post of Edward’s lord chamberlain of the household, grimaced helplessly, all the expression lines of his forty-one years coming into play. They were pleasant lines, because although the first of his guiding principles was to make money, the second was to make himself liked by everyone. ‘Parliament could vote a special tax to pay the longbowmen. Or we could try raising benevolences.’

‘Not as a first step. People don’t enjoy having loans forced out of them.’

The queen, who detested Lord Hastings – suspecting him, with some justification, of being her husband’s whore-finder – was not accustomed to being ignored. She did not frown because it was ageing. She merely raised her voice slightly and amended her tone from genteelly gracious to shrewishly piercing. ‘But I believe that my opinion is not without value.’

Edward’s attention was caught and he smiled at her indulgently, thinking how pretty she always looked – the perfect ice maiden, though at thirty-four, twice married, and pregnant for the seventh time, perhaps ‘maiden’ was not the appropriate word. But elegant she was, with her Nordic fairness and the royal sense of style she had so swiftly developed after their clandestine marriage of seven years before. She reclined, now, in a gaily painted litter draped and cushioned with cloth-of-gold, four of her ladies-in-waiting on horseback around her. He would have liked to jump in and join her; he had never made love in a horse litter. His loins gave an interested twitch.

They were spending a few days at one of Edward’s favourite residences, Eltham Palace in Kent, where he was planning major building works, but on this particular day he had chosen to ride out to survey its three deer parks and decide which to enclose and which to enlarge. It was a soothing way of passing the time and Edward, after three years of almost unbroken campaigning, was disinclined to expend more energy than necessary except in the pleasurable exercises of the bedchamber – or the horse litter.

He put temptation reluctantly aside. He was a big man and vigorous in bed. The litter probably wouldn’t take the strain, although it might be worth trying some time. Urbanely, he said, ‘Your opinion is always of value, my love. And with ten brothers and sisters of your own, I would not expect you to feel for George and Richard as I do.’

‘No. Nor do I have a nature as forgiving as yours. I do not believe that George has mended his ways. Until our son was born last year, George was publicly recognised as your heir and I believe he still thinks of himself as such. I fear for little Eddie’s safety.’

Delicately, she touched a handkerchief to her eyes while waving aside the reassurances trembling on her husband’s lips. ‘No, no. I am aware that you have arranged for every precaution to be taken. But George is setting himself up against you. Again. His opposition to the marriage between Richard and Anne Neville …’

‘For which I have already given Richard permission,’ the king interrupted defensively.

‘… is based on pure greed. He is determined that his wife should hold on to all the Warwick estates, instead of sharing them with Anne. I believe you must force him to share.’

Edward’s high, smooth forehead furrowed slightly. ‘It’s difficult, my love. I did grant them to the Lady Isabel, after her father was killed, and I would prefer not to offend George by taking them away again …’

‘It should be George’s concern not to offend you more than he has done already. But you must make him behave. If you force him to share the Warwick lands, he will no longer be able to afford to look like a king in waiting, which he does. I find the royal way in which he conducts himself really quite shocking!’

Edward said, ‘He doesn’t do so in my presence.’

‘Perhaps you don’t see it, because you don’t want to. You are far too soft-hearted.’

‘I’m fond of George, and if sometimes George appears not to reciprocate, that is just George’s way. He has not quite grown up yet.’

She gave a tinkling laugh. ‘He is twenty-one years old! Richard is eighteen and far more mature. You must favour him over George.’

The king turned to Hastings. ‘William …’

Hastings had been hoping not to be involved because, for once, he was in agreement with the queen. George was pompous, arrogant and dangerous, but Edward could not be persuaded to see it, or to admit to seeing it. On the other hand, the queen’s complaint about George’s royal pretensions was laughable, coming from a woman who was little more than a parvenue but demanded the kind of subservience normally accorded only to those in whose veins ran the bluest of blue blood.

‘Sire?’

‘Should we favour Richard?’ the king asked.

Hastings was cornered. ‘He has been unfailingly loyal to you, sire. Although you have already rewarded him, you have given far greater reward to George, who has not been loyal to you. Richard may well feel that he has been unjustly treated.’

Edward’s golden-brown eyes looked absent. ‘I do not believe that there is anything at my disposal that I can afford to bestow on him without undermining my own finances. A rich marriage for him would certainly be the most convenient solution.’

Trying for the lighter touch, Hastings offered, ‘Very true. And the Lady Anne appears to be the only candidate, since the queen’s brothers have already appropriated to themselves all the other great heiresses in the realm.’ Then, aware of being skewered by the queen’s pale gaze, he added hurriedly, ‘I merely mention it. However, I understand that Henry Stafford is close to death, which will make a widow of that clever wife of his, the Lady Margaret Beaufort. She might be available.’

Diverted, the queen exclaimed, ‘Invite that woman into the royal family? Never!’

Privately, Hastings cursed himself for his stupidity, because ‘that woman’ might have become queen of England in her own right, had it not been for a general prejudice against women rulers. She also had a son by a previous marriage who, through his father, had a different though more distant claim to the throne. It was astounding how many potential claimants there were, if one stopped to think about it.

‘Elizabeth, my dear!’ Edward said in mild rebuke. And then, with a sigh, ‘I suppose I have no choice but to order George to agree to Richard’s marriage. If only the two of them could be persuaded to resolve the inheritance issue between themselves! But I expect I shall end by setting up a formal review so that they can argue it out in front of lawyers. George won’t like that. If I know anything, he’ll go on complaining about it for years!’

RICHARD, having installed his household in the great waterside palace known as Baynard’s Castle, the family home by the Thames, immediately despatched his serjeant of the stable to deliver the head of the Bastard of Fauconberg, which had survived its journey well, to the royal palace at Westminster, then himself set out, with Francis and a small bodyguard for company, for the Warwick mansion next to St Paul’s.

Long familiar with the city, he barely glanced around him as the trumpeter cleared a path for him and bonnets were doffed towards him, but Francis looked with interest at the tradesmen’s tiny houses, unable to imagine how people could actually live in them, and tried to assess the worth of the goods set out on the stalls in front.

Blocking their path ahead was a lumbering convoy of carts laden with firewood, hay and straw being carried up from the wharves, and the inevitable moment came when the straw bulging over the sides of one cart swept a merchant’s entire stock of linen and ribbons off his stall on to the filthy ground. At once, a fist fight broke out which within seconds developed into a small riot. Knives began flashing and Richard was just saying, a disquieting gleam in his eye, ‘We will have to do something,’ when a sheriff arrived with his serjeants and yeomen, cuffed the ears of the belligerents, and dragged a random few of them off in the general direction of the pillory at Ludgate in the city wall.

Slightly deflated, Richard said, ‘Well, that’s swift retribution, if you like! My brother’s campaign to impose law and order is obviously having an effect.’

As they approached Ludgate, the houses became larger and more imposing, and the late earl of Warwick’s proved to be the most imposing of them all. Warwick’s household had been so large that it was not uncommon for as many as six whole oxen to be consumed at breakfast.

The Great Hall of the mansion, which was stonewalled, whitewashed, tapestry-hung and as vast as its name implied, proved to be very full of people. Such halls had long been the focus of life in England’s castles and mansions, the place where the lord kept open house for his followers, retainers and any other respectable persons who chose to present themselves, but it was becoming increasingly fashionable for the nobility to retire into their new Great Chambers, which could be entered only by invitation. George, it seemed, had chosen not to adopt the new ways, no doubt because a crowded Great Hall was an index of popularity and power – which ministered to his vanity.

Scanning the hall, Francis observed a chaplain who appeared to be testing the pitch of half a dozen choirboys, although how he could hear their piping voices in the general babel Francis could not imagine. Further over, dictating to a seated clerk, was a grey-faced gentleman with an armful of papers who looked as if he might be the household receiver, or rent collector. A jester was prancing around tapping people on the shoulder with his bauble and presumably telling them jokes, while a melancholy-looking fellow over in one corner was grinding away on a hurdy-gurdy. And everywhere, brightly clad knights and gentlemen were engrossed in conversations that seemed to entail a great deal of shouting and gesticulating.

Close by the far window was a small group of women, the only women in the room. Seated on a hard stool was a slender dark girl, languidly occupied with distaff and spindle. Three drab, middle-aged gentlewomen stood by, their hands folded subserviently. And in the centre, partly obscured from Francis’s sight by a plump, curly-haired gentleman who was clearly offering her a special price on the lengths of velvet draped over his arm, was George’s wife, the Lady Isabel. No sign of the Lady Anne.

And then the steward was leading them across to George, who with apparent relief dismissed the stout bishop with whom he had been conversing, but whose jovial welcome to his brother was as false as a harlot’s vows of love.

Towering over the compact and neatly built Richard, George said, ‘You look well, young Diccon. What news of the frozen north?’

‘Thawing nicely. Lord Lovell here has been complaining of the heat.’

George floundered. ‘Er, Lovell?’ He stared at Francis as if he were a spirit that had strayed