The White Queen (15 page)

“The charge?” I can hardly speak. My mouth is numb, as if someone had punched me in
the face. “They were fighting for an ordained king against rebels. What could anyone
say against them? What could be the charge?”

He shakes his head. “They were executed on the word of Lord Warwick,” he says quietly.
“There was no trial, there was no charge. It seems my lord Warwick’s own word is now
law. He had them beheaded without
trial or sentence, without justice. Shall I give the orders for you to be escorted
to London? Or shall I arrange for a ship? Will you go overseas?”

“I am to go to London,” I say. “It is my capital city, it is my kingdom. I am not
a foreign queen to run to France. I am an Englishwoman. I live and die here.” I correct
myself. “I will live and fight here.”

“May I offer you my deepest condolences? To you and to the king?”

“Do you have news of the king?”

“We were hoping that your gracious self could reassure us?”

“I have heard nothing,” I lie. They will not learn from me that the king is a prisoner
in Middleham Castle, that we are defeated. “I will leave this afternoon, within two
hours, tell them. I will ride to claim my city of London and then we will reclaim
England. My husband has never lost a battle. He will defeat his enemies and bring
all traitors to trial and justice.”

He bows, they all bow, and go out backwards. I sit on my chair like a queen, the gold
cloth of estate over my head, until the door has closed on them and then I say to
my ladies, “Leave me. Prepare for our journey.”

They flutter and they hesitate. They long to pause and pet me, but they see the grimness
in my face and they trail away. I am alone in the sunlit room and I see that the chair
that I am sitting on is chipped, the carving under my hand is faulty. The cloth of
estate over my head is dusty. I see that I have lost my father and my brother, the
kindest, most loving father that a
daughter ever had, and a good brother. I have lost them for a chipped chair and a
dusty cloth. My passion for Edward and my ambition for the throne put us, all of us,
into the very forefront of the battle and cost me this first blood: my darling brother
and the father I love.

I think of my father putting me on my first pony and telling me to lift up my chin
and keep my hands down, to keep tight hold of the reins, to tell the pony who is master.
I think of his cupping my mother’s cheek in his hand and telling her that she is the
cleverest woman in England and he will be guided by none but her; and then going his
own way. I think of his falling in love with her when he was her first husband’s squire
and she his lady, who should never even have looked at him. I think of his marrying
her the moment she was widowed, in defiance of all the rules, and their being called
the handsomest couple in England, married for love, which nobody but the two of them
would have dared to do. I think of him at Reading, as Anthony described him, pretending
to know everything and with his eyes rolling in his head. I could even laugh for love
of him, thinking of his telling me that he can call me Elizabeth only in private,
now I am queen, and that we must become accustomed. I think of how he puffed out his
chest when I told him that I was marrying his son to a duchess, and that he himself
would be an earl.

And then I think of how my mother will take her loss, and that it will be me who has
to tell her that he had a traitor’s death for fighting in my cause, after fighting
all his life for the other side. I think of all of
this, and I feel weary and sick to my soul, wearier and sicker than I have ever felt
in all my life, even worse than when Father came home from the battle of Towton and
said that our cause was lost, even worse than when my husband never came home at all
from St. Albans and they told me he died bravely in a charge against the Yorks.

I feel worse than I have ever done before, because now I know that it is easier to
take a country into war than to bring it to live at peace, and a country at war is
a bitter place to live, a risky place to have daughters, and a dangerous place to
hope for a son.

I am welcomed
in London as a heroine, and the city is all for Edward; but it will make no difference
if that butcher Warwick kills him in prison. I make my home for now in the well-fortified
Tower of London with my girls and my Grey sons—they are obedient, scared as puppies
now that they see that not every battle is won, and not every beloved son comes safe
home. They are shaken by the loss of their uncle John and they ask every day for the
safety of the king. We are all grieving: my girls have lost a good grandfather and
a beloved uncle, and know that their father is in dreadful danger. I write to my kinsman
the Duke of Burgundy and ask him to prepare a safe hiding place in Flanders for me,
my Grey sons, and my royal girls. I tell him that we must find a little town, one
of no importance, and a poor family who can pretend to take in English cousins. I
must
find somewhere for my daughters to hide that they will never be found.

The duke swears he will do more than this. He will support the City if they turn out
for me and for York. He promises men and an army. He asks me what news I have of the
king. Is he safe?

I cannot write to reassure him. The news of my husband is inexplicable. He is a king
in captivity, just like the poor King Henry. How can such a thing be? How can such
a thing continue? Warwick is still holding him at Middleham Castle, and persuading
the lords to deny that Edward was ever king. There are those who say that Edward will
be offered the choice: either to abdicate his throne for his brother, or climb the
scaffold. Warwick will have either the crown or his head. There are those who say
it is only days now before we hear that Edward is thrown down and fled to Burgundy;
or dead. I have to listen to such gossip in the place of news, and I wonder if I am
to be widowed in the same month that I have lost my father and my brother. And how
shall I bear that?

My mother comes to me in the second week of my vigil. She comes from our old home
at Grafton, dry-eyed and somehow bowed, as if she has taken a wound to her belly and
is bent over the pain. The moment that I see her I know that I won’t have to tell
her that she is a widow. She knows she has lost the great love of her life, and her
hand rests on the knot of her girdle all the time, as if to hold in a mortal
wound. She knows that her husband is dead, but no one has told her how he died, or
why. I have to take her into my private room, close the door on the children, and
find the words to describe the death of her husband and son. And it was a shameful
death, for good men, at the hand of a traitor.

“I am so sorry,” I say. I kneel at her feet and clasp her hands. “I am so sorry, Mother.
I will have Warwick’s head for this. I will see George dead.”

She shakes her head. I look up at her and see lines on her face that I swear were
never there before. She has lost the glow of a contented woman, and her joy has fallen
away from her face and left weary lines.

“No,” she says. She pats my plaited hair and says, “Hush, hush. Your father would
not have wanted you to grieve. He knew the risks well enough. It was not his first
battle, God knows. Here.” She reaches inside her gown and gives me a handwritten note.
“His last letter to me. He sends me his blessing and his love to you. He wrote it
as they told him he would be released. I think he knew the truth.”

My father’s handwriting is clear and bold as his speech. I cannot believe I will not
hear the one and see the other again and again.

“And John . . .” She breaks off. “John is a loss to me and to his generation,” she
says quietly. “Your brother John had his whole life before him.”

She pauses. “When you raise a child and he becomes a man, you start to think that
he is safe, that you are safe from heartbreak. When a child gets through all the
illnesses of childhood, when a plague year comes and takes your neighbors’ children
and yet your boy lives, you start to think he will be safe forever. Every year you
think another year away from danger, another year towards becoming a man. I raised
John, I raised all my children, breathless with hope. And we married him to that old
woman for her title and her fortune, and we laughed knowing that he would outlive
her. It was a great joke to us, knowing that he was such a young husband, to such
an old woman. We laughed to make mock of her age, knowing her to be so much closer
to the grave than he. And now she will see him buried and keep her fortune. How can
such a thing be?”

She breathes a long sigh, as if she is too tired for anything more. “And yet I should
know. Of all the people in the world, I should have known. I have the Sight, I should
have seen it all, but some things are too dark to foresee. These are hard times, and
England is a country of sorrows. No mother can be sure that she will not bury her
sons. When a country is at war, cousin against cousin, brother against brother, no
boy is safe.”

I sit back on my heels. “The king’s mother, Duchess Cecily, shall know this pain.
She will have this pain that you are feeling. She will know the loss of her son George,”
I spit. “I swear it. She will see him die the death of a liar and a turncoat. You
have lost a son and so shall she, my word on it.”

“So will you, by that rule,” my mother warns me. “More and more deaths, and more feuds,
and more fatherless children, and more widowed brides. Do you
want to mourn for your missing son in future days, as I am doing now?”

“We can reconcile after George,” I say stubbornly. “They must be punished for this.
George and Warwick are dead men from this day. I swear it, Mother. They are dead men
from this day.” I rise up and go to the table. “I will tear a corner from his letter,”
I say. “I will write their deaths in my own blood on my father’s letter.”

“You are wrong,” she says quietly, but she lets me cut a corner from the letter and
give it back to her.

There is a knock at the door and I wipe the tears from my face before I let my mother
call “Enter,” but the door is flung open without ceremony, and Edward, my darling
Edward, strolls into the room as if he had been out for a day’s hunting and thought
he would surprise me by coming home early.

“My God! It is you! Edward! It is you? It is really you?”

“It is me,” he confirms. “I greet you too, My Lady Mother Jacquetta.”

I fling myself at him, and as his arms come around me, I smell his familiar scent
and feel the strength of his chest, and I sob at the very touch of him. “I thought
you were in prison,” I say. “I thought he was going to kill you.”

“Lost his nerve,” he says shortly, trying to stroke my back and take down my hair
at the same time. “Sir Humphrey Neville raised Yorkshire for Henry, and when Warwick
went against him nobody supported him; he needed me. He started to see that nobody
would have George for king, and I would not sign away my throne. He hadn’t bargained
for that. He didn’t dare behead me. To say truth, I don’t think he could find a headsman
to do it. I am crowned king: he can’t just lop off my head as if it were firewood.
I am ordained; my body is sacred. Not even Warwick dares to kill a king in cold blood.

“He came to me with the paper of my abdication, and I told him that I couldn’t see
my way to signing. I was happy to stay in his house. The cook is excellent and the
cellar better. I told him I was happy to move my whole court to Middleham Castle if
he wanted me as a guest forever. I said I could see no reason why my rule should not
run from his castle, at his expense. But that I would never deny who I am.”

He laughs, his loud confident laugh. “Sweetheart, you should have seen him. He thought
if he had me in his power, that he had the crown at his bidding. But he found me unhelpful.
It was as good as a mumming to see him puzzle as to what to do. Once I heard you were
safely in the Tower I wasn’t afraid of anything. He thought I would break when he
took hold of me, and I didn’t even bend. He thought I was still the little boy who
adored him. He didn’t realize that I am a grown man. I was a most agreeable guest.
I ate well, and when friends came to see me, I demanded that they be entertained royally.
First I asked to walk in the gardens, then in the forest. Then I said I should like
to ride out, and what would be the harm in letting me go hunting? He started to let
me ride out. My council came
and demanded to see me, and he did not know how to refuse them. I met them and passed
the odd law or two so that everyone knew nothing had changed, I was still reigning
as king. It was hard not to laugh in his face. He thought to imprison me and found
instead he was merely bearing the cost of a full court. Sweetheart, I asked for a
choir while I dined, and he could not see how to refuse me. I hired dancers and players.
He started to see that merely holding the king is not enough: you have to destroy
him. You have to kill him. But I gave him nothing; he knew I would die before I gave
him anything.

“Then one fine morning—four days ago—his grooms made the mistake of giving me my own
horse, my war horse Fury, and I knew he could outrun anything in their stables. So
I thought I would ride a little farther, and a little faster than usual, that’s all.
I thought I might be able to ride to you—and I have done.”

“It is over?” I ask incredulously. “You got away?”

He grins in his pride like a boy. “I would like to see the horse that could catch
me on Fury,” he said. “They had left him in the stable for two weeks feeding him oats.
I was at Ripon before I could draw breath. I couldn’t have pulled him up if I had
wanted to!”

I laugh, sharing his delight. “Dear God, Edward, I have been so afraid! I thought
I would never see you again. Beloved, I thought I would never ever see you again.”

He kisses my head and strokes my back. “Did I not say when we first married that I
will always come back
to you? Did I not say I would die in my bed with you as my wife? Have you not promised
to give me a son? D’you think any prison could keep me from you, ever?”