The White Queen (22 page)

I stand her up on a stool to the grille in the door, then I splash water on my face
and twist my hair up under my headdress. The girl brings me my gown and ties it up,
fumbling with the ribbons, and then we hear the thunder of his knock at the door and
Elizabeth screams and jumps down to open it, and then falls back as he comes in, taller
and graver than she remembers him, and in a moment I have run to him, barefoot as
I am, and I am in his arms again.

“My son,” he demands after he has held me and kissed me and rubbed his rough chin
against my cheek. “Where is my son? Is he strong? Is he well?”

“He is strong and well. He is five months old this month,” my mother says as she brings
him in, swaddled tightly, and sweeps Edward a great curtsey. “And you are welcome
home, son Edward, Your Grace.”

Gently he puts me aside and goes swiftly to her. I had forgotten that he could move
so lightly on his feet, like a dancer. He takes his son from my mother’s arms, and
though he whispers “Thank you,” he does not even see her: he is quite distracted.
He takes the baby over to the light of the window, and Baby Edward opens his dark-blue
eyes and yawns, his rosebud mouth opening wide, and he looks into the face of his
father as if to return the intense gray-eyed scrutiny.

“My son,” he says quietly. “Elizabeth, forgive me, that you had to give birth to him
here. I would not have had that for the world.”

I nod in silence.

“And he is baptized and named Edward as I wanted?”

“He is.”

“And he thrives?”

“We are just starting to feed him solid food,” my mother says proudly. “And he is
taking to it. He sleeps well and he is a bright, clever boy. Elizabeth has nursed
him herself, and no one could have been a better wet nurse to him. We have made you
a little prince here.”

Edward looks at her. “Thank you for his care,” he says. “And for staying with my Elizabeth.”
He looks down. His daughters, Elizabeth, Mary, and Cecily, are gathered around him,
gazing up at him as if he were some strange beast, a unicorn perhaps, who has suddenly
cantered into their nursery.

Gently he kneels so that he does not tower above them, still holding the baby in the
crook of his arm. “And you are my girls, my princesses,” he says quietly to them.
“Do you remember me? I have been away a long time, more than half a year; but I am
your father. I have been away from you for far too long, but there was never a day
when I did not think of you and your beautiful mother and swear that I would come
home to you and set you in your rightful places again. Do you remember me?”

Cecily’s lower lip trembles, but Elizabeth speaks: “I remember you.” She puts her
hand on his shoulder and looks into his face without fear. “I am Elizabeth, I am the
oldest. I remember you; the others are too small. Do you remember me, your Elizabeth?
Princess
Elizabeth? One day I shall be Queen of England like my mother.”

We laugh at that, and he gets to his feet again, hands the baby to my mother, and
takes me into his arms. Richard and Thomas step forward and kneel for his blessing.

“My boys,” he says warmly. “You must have hated it, cooped up in here.”

Richard nods. “I wish I had been with you, Sire.”

“Next time you shall,” Edward promises him.

“How long have you been in England?” I ask, my words muffled as he starts to pull
my hair down. “Have you an army?”

“I came with your brother and with my true friends,” he says. “Richard my brother,
your brother Anthony, Hastings, of course, the ones who went into exile with me. And
now others are coming to my side. George, my brother, has left Warwick and will fight
for me. He and Richard and I embraced each other as brothers once more, before the
very walls of Coventry, under the nose of Warwick. George has brought Lord Shrewsbury
over to us. And Sir William Stanley has come over to my side. There will be others.”
I think of the power of Warwick and the Lancastrian affinity, and the French army
that Margaret will bring, and I know that it is not enough.

“I can stay tonight,” he says. “I had to see you. But tomorrow I have to go to war.”

I can hardly believe him. “You will never leave me tomorrow?”

“Sweetheart, I took a risk just coming here. Warwick is holed up in Coventry and will
neither surrender nor give battle, for he knows that Margaret of Anjou is coming with
her army and together they will make a mighty force. George came out and is with us,
and he has brought Shrewsbury and his tenants; but it’s not enough. I have to take
Henry as a hostage, and ride out to face her. They will be hoping that I will be cornered
here, but I will take the battle to them and, if I am lucky, then I will meet Warwick
and defeat him before I have to meet Margaret and defeat her.”

My mouth grows dry and I swallow in fear at the thought of his facing one great general,
and then the great army of Margaret. “The French army will come with Margaret?”

“The miracle is that she has not yet landed. We were both ready to sail at the same
time. We were about to race each other to England. We have both been pinned down by
the weather since February. She had her fleet ready to sail from Honfleur nearly a
month ago, and she has been out and driven back by a storm over and over again. There
was a gap in the wind in my favor for no more than a day. It was like magic, my love,
and we got away, blown all the way to Yorkshire. But at least it gives me the chance
to take them one at a time and not face a united army led by the two of them at once.”

I glance at my mother at the mention of the storm, but her face is smilingly innocent.
“You will not go tomorrow?”

“Sweetheart, you have me tonight. Shall we spend the time talking?”

We turn and go into my chamber, and he closes the door with a kick of his foot. He
takes me into his arms as he always does. “Bed, Wife,” he says.

He takes me
as he has always done, passionately, as a dry man slaking his thirst. But for once,
tonight, he is a different man. The smell of his hair and his skin is the same, and
that is enough to make me beg for his touch, but after he has had me, he holds me
tightly in his arms, as if for once the pleasure is not enough. It is as if he wants
something more from me.

“Edward?” I murmur. “Are you all right?”

He does not answer but buries his head against my shoulder and my neck as if he would
block out the world with the warmth of my flesh.

“Sweetheart, I was afraid,” he says. I can hardly hear him he speaks so low. “Sweetheart,
I was most afraid.”

“Of what?” I ask, a foolish question of a man who has had to flee for his life and
put together an army in exile and is facing the most powerful army in Christendom.

He turns and lies on his back, his hand still gripping me close to his side so I press
against him from breastbone to toes.

“When they said Warwick was coming for me, and George with him, I knew this time he
would not take me and hold me. I knew this time it would be my
death. I have never thought anyone would kill me before, but I knew Warwick would,
and I knew George would let him.”

“But you got away.”

“I ran,” he said. “It was not a careful retreat, my love, it was not a maneuver. It
was a rout. I ran in fear of my life, and all the time I knew myself for a coward.
I ran and left you.”

“It is not cowardice to get away from an enemy,” I say. “Anyway, you have come back
to face him.”

“I ran and I left you and the girls to face him,” he says. “I find I don’t think well
of myself for that. I didn’t run to London for you. I didn’t get here and make a desperate
stand. I ran to the nearest port and I took the first boat.”

“Anyone would have done so. I never blamed you.” I lean up on my elbow and look down
into his face. “You had to get away to get an army together and come back to save
us. Everyone knew that. And my brother went with you, and your brother Richard. They
judged it the right thing to do as well.”

“I don’t know what they felt while they were running like deer, but I know what I
felt. I was as scared as a child with a bully coming after him.”

I fall silent. I don’t know how to comfort him, or what to say.

He sighs. “I have been fighting for my kingdom or for my life ever since I was a boy.
And in all that time I never thought I might lose. I never thought I would be
captured. I never thought I would die. It’s odd, isn’t it? You will think me foolish.
But in all that long time, even when my father was killed and my brother too, I never
thought it could happen to me. I never thought it would be my head chopped off and
stuck on a spike on the city walls. I thought myself unbeatable, invulnerable.”

I wait.

“And now I know I am not,” he says. “I have told no one this. I will tell no one but
you. But I am not the man you married, Elizabeth. You married a boy who knew no fear.
I thought that meant I was brave. But I was not brave—I was just lucky. Until now.
Now I am a man and I have felt fear and fled from it.”

I am about to say something to comfort him, a sweet lie; but then I think I will tell
him the truth. “It’s a fool who is afraid of nothing,” I say. “And a brave man is
one who knows fear and rides out and faces it. You ran then, but you are back now.
Are you going to run away from battle tomorrow?”

“God, no!”

I smile. “Then you are the man I married. For the man I married was a brave young
man, and you are a brave man still. The man I married had not known fear, nor had
he a son, nor did he know love. But all these things have come to us and we are changed
by them, but not spoiled by them.”

He looks at me gravely. “You mean this?”

“I do,” I say. “And I too have been very afraid, but I am not afraid with you here
again.”

He draws me even closer. “I think I will sleep now,”
he says, comforted like a little boy, and I hold him tenderly, as if he were my little
boy.

I wake in
the morning wondering at my joy, at the silky feel of my skin, at the warmth in my
belly, at my sense of renewal and life, and then he stirs beside me and I know that
I am safe, that he is safe, that we are together once more, and that this is why I
have woken with sunshine on my bare skin. Then, in the next moment, I remember that
he must go. And though he is now stirring, he is not smiling this morning. That shakes
me again. Edward is always so confident, but this morning his face is grim.

“Don’t say one word to delay me,” he says, getting out of the bed and throwing on
his clothes. “I cannot bear to go. I cannot stand to leave you again. If you hold
me back, I swear I will falter. Smile, and wish me good luck, sweetheart. I need your
blessing; I need your courage.”

I swallow my fear. “You have my blessing,” I say, strained. “Always you have my blessing.
And all the good luck in the world.” I try to sound bright, but my voice quavers.
“Are you going right away?”

“I am going to fetch Henry that they have been calling king,” he says. “I will take
him with me as a hostage. I saw him yesterday at his rooms in the Tower, before I
came to you. He knew me. He said that he knew he would be safe with me, his cousin.
He was like a child, poor thing. He did not seem to know that he had been king again.”

“There is only one King of England,” I say staunchly. “And there has only been one
King of England since you were crowned.”

“I shall see you in a few days,” he says. “And I’ll go now without saying good-bye
to your mother or the girls. It’s better like this. Let me go quickly.”

“Won’t you even have breakfast?” I don’t mean to wail, but I can hardly bear to let
him go.

“I’ll eat with the men.”

“Of course,” I say brightly. “And my boys?”

“I’ll take them with me. They can serve as messengers. I’ll keep them as safe as I
can.”

I feel my heart plunge in terror for them too. “Good,” I say. “Besides, you will be
back within the week, won’t you?”

“God willing,” he says.

This is the man who used to swear to me that he was born to die in his bed with me
beside him. Never before has he said “God willing.” Always before it has been his
will—not God’s.

He pauses in the doorway. “If I die, then get yourself and the children away to Flanders,”
he says. “There is a poor house at Tournai where a man owes me a favor. He is a bastard
cousin or something to your mother’s family. He would take you in as his kinswoman.
He has a story ready to account for you. I went to see him, and we agreed how it should
be done in time of need. I have paid him money already, and written his name down
for you. It is on the table in your room. Read it and then burn it. You can stay with
him and when the
hunt is over you can get a house of your own. But hide there for a year or two. When
my son is grown, he can claim his own, perhaps.”

“Don’t speak of it,” I say fiercely. “You have never lost a battle, you never lose.
You will be home within the week, I know it.”

“It’s true,” he says. “I have never lost a battle.” He manages a grim smile. “But
I have never come against Warwick himself before. And I can’t muster enough men in
time. But I am in the hands of God, and with His will, we will win.”

And with that, he is gone.

It is Easter
Saturday, it is dusk, and the church bells of London slowly start to peal, one after
another. The city is quiet, still somber from the prayers of Good Friday, apprehensive:
a capital city which had two kings and now has no king at all, as Edward has marched
out and taken Henry in his train. If they are both killed, what will become of England?
What will become of London? What will become of me, and my sleeping children?

Mother and I have spent the day sewing, playing with the children, and tidying our
four rooms. We said our prayers for Easter Saturday and we boiled and painted eggs,
ready to give as gifts for Easter Day. We heard Mass and received Holy Communion.
If anyone reports on us to Warwick, they will have to say that we were calm; they
will say we seemed confident. But now, as the afternoon goes gray, we stand together
by the little window over the river that passes so close below us.
Mother swings open the casement to listen to the quiet ripples, as if the river might
whisper news of Edward’s army, and whether the son of York can rise again like a Lenten
lily, this spring, as he rose once before.