The White Queen (27 page)

Behind their train comes Margaret of Anjou, white-faced and grim, seated on a litter
drawn by mules. They don’t exactly bind her hands and feet and put a silver chain
around her throat but I think everyone understands well enough that this woman is
defeated and will not rise from her defeat. I take Elizabeth with me when I greet
Edward at the gate of the Tower because I want my little daughter to see this woman
who has been a terror to her for all her five years, to see her defeated
and to know that we are all safe from the one she calls the bad queen.

Edward greets me formally before the cheering crowd but whispers in my ear, “I can’t
wait to get you alone.”

But he has to wait. He has knighted half the city of London in thanks for their fidelity,
and there is a banquet to celebrate their rise to greatness. In truth, we all have
much to be thankful for. Edward has fought for his crown again, and won again, and
I am still the wife of a king who has never been beaten in battle. I put my mouth
to his ear and whisper back, “I can’t wait either, husband.”

We go to bed late, in his chambers, and half the guests are drunk and the others beside
themselves with happiness to find themselves at a York court again. Edward pulls me
down beside him and takes me as if we were newly married in the little hunting lodge
by the river, and I hold him again, as the man who saved me from poverty and the man
who saved England from constant warfare, and I am glad that he calls me “Wife, my
darling wife.”

He says against my hair. “You held me when I was afraid, my love. I thank you for
that. It’s the first time I have had to go out knowing that I might lose. It made
me sick with fear.”

“I saw a battle. Not even a battle, a massacre,” I say, my forehead against his chest.
“It’s a terrible thing, Edward. I didn’t know.”

He lies back, his face grim. “It is a terrible thing,” he says. “And there is no one
who loves peace more than a soldier. I will bring this country to peace and to loyalty
to us. I swear it. Whatever I have to do to bring it about. We have to stop these
endless battles. We have to bring this war to an end.”

“It’s vile,” I say. “There is no honor in it at all.”

“It has to end,” he says. “I have to end it.”

We are both silent, and I expect him to sleep, but instead he lies thoughtful, his
arms folded behind his head, staring at the golden tester over the bed, and when I
say, “What is it, Edward? Is something troubling you?”

He says slowly, “No, but there is something I have to do before I can sleep at peace
tonight.”

“Shall I come with you?”

“No, love, this is men’s work.”

“What is it?”

“Nothing. Nothing for you to worry about. Nothing. Go to sleep. I will come back to
you later.”

I am alarmed now. I sit up in bed. “What is it, Edward? You look—I don’t know—what
is the matter? Are you ill?”

He gets out of bed with sudden decision and pulls on his clothes. “Peace, beloved.
I have to go and do something, and when it is done I shall be able to rest. I shall
be back within the hour. Go to sleep and I will wake you and have you again.”

I laugh at that, and lie back, but when he is dressed and gone quietly from the room,
I slip from the bed
and pull on my nightgown. On my bare feet, making no noise, I tiptoe through the privy
chamber and out into the presence chamber. The guards are silent at the door, and
I nod at them without a word, and they lift their halberds and let me pass. I pause
at the head of the stairs and look down. The stair rails curl round and round inside
the well of the building, and I can see Edward’s hand going down and down to the floor
below us, where the old king has his rooms. I see Richard’s dark head far below me,
at the old king’s doorway, as if he is waiting to enter; and I hear George’s voice
floating up the stairwell. “We thought you had changed your mind!”

“No. It has to be done.”

I know then what they are about, the three golden brothers of York who won their first
battle under three suns in the sky, who are so blessed by God that they never lose.
But I do not call out to stop them. I do not run downstairs and catch Edward’s arm
and swear that he shall not do this thing. I know that he is of two minds; but I do
not throw my opinion on the side of compassion, of living with an enemy, of trusting
to God for our safety. I do not think: if they do this, what might someone do to us?
I see the key in Edward’s hand, I hear the turning of the lock, I hear the door open
to the king’s rooms, and I let the three of them go in, without a word from me.

Henry, madman or saint, is a consecrated king: his body is sacred. He is in the heart
of his own kingdom, his own city, his own tower: he must be safe here. He is
guarded by good men. He is a prisoner of honor to the House of York. He should be
as secure as if he were in his own court: he trusts to us for his safekeeping.

He is one frail man to three young warriors. How can they not be merciful? He is their
cousin, their kinsman, and they all three once swore to love and be faithful to him.
He is sleeping like a child when the three come into the room. What will happen to
us all if they can bring themselves to murder a man as innocent and helpless as a
sleeping boy?

I know this is why I have always hated the Tower. I know this is why the tall dark
palace on the edge of the Thames has always filled me with foreboding. This death
has been on my conscience before we even did it. How heavily it will sit with me from
now on only God and my conscience knows. And what price will I have to pay for my
part in it, for my silent listening, without a word of protest?

I don’t go back to Edward’s bed. I don’t want to be in his bed when he comes back
to me with the smell of death on his hands. I don’t want to be here, in the Tower
at all. I don’t want my son to sleep here, in the Tower of London, supposedly the
safest place in England, where armed men can walk into the room of an innocent and
hold a pillow over his face. I go to my own rooms and I stir up the fire and I sit
beside the warmth all night long, and I know without doubt that the House of York
has taken a step on a road that will lead us to hell.

I am seated with my mother on a raised bed of camomile, the warm scent of the herb
all around us, in the garden of the royal manor of Greenwich, one of my dower houses,
given to me as queen, and still one of my favorite country houses. I am picking out
colors for her embroidery. The children are down at the river, feeding ducks with
their nursemaid. I can hear their high voices in the distance, calling the ducks by
the names they have given them, and scolding them when they don’t respond. Now and
then I can hear the distinctive squeak of joy from my son. Every time I hear his voice
my heart lifts that I have a boy, and a prince, and that he is a happy baby; and my
mother, thinking the same, gives a little nod of satisfaction.

The country is so settled and peaceful, one would think there had never been a rival
king and armies marching at double time to face each other. The country has welcomed
the return of my husband; we have all rushed towards peace. More than anything else,
we all want to get on with our lives under a fair rule, and forget the loss and pain
of the last sixteen years. Oh, there are a few who hold out: Margaret Beaufort’s son,
now the most unlikely heir to the Lancaster line, is
holed up in Pembroke Castle in Wales with his uncle, Jasper Tudor, but they cannot
last for long. The world has changed, and they will have to sue for peace. Margaret
Beaufort’s own husband, Henry Stafford, is a Yorkist now and fought on our side at
Barnet. Perhaps only she, stubborn as a martyr, and her silly son are the last Lancastrians
left in the world.

I have a dozen shades of green laid out on my white-gowned knee, and my mother is
threading her needle, holding it up to the sky to see better, bringing it closer to
her eyes and then farther away again. I think it is the first time in my life I have
ever seen a trace of weakness in her. “Can’t you see to thread your needle?” I ask
her, half amused.

And she turns and smiles at me and says, quite easily, “My eyes are not the only things
that are failing me, and my thread is not the only thing that is blurred. I shan’t
see sixty, my child. You should prepare yourself.”

It is as if the day has suddenly gone cold and dark. “Shan’t see sixty!” I exclaim.
“Why ever not? Are you ill? You said nothing! Shall you see the physician? We must
go back to London?”

She shakes her head and sighs. “No, there is nothing for a physician to see, and thank
God, nothing that some fool with a knife would think he could cut out. It is my heart,
Elizabeth. I can hear it. It is beating wrongly—I can hear it skip a beat, and then
go slowly. It will not beat strongly again, I don’t think. I don’t expect to see many
more summers.”

I am so aghast I don’t even feel sorrow. “But what shall I do?” I demand, my hand
on my belly, where another new life is beginning. “Mother, what shall I do? You can’t
think of it! How shall I manage?”

“You can’t say I haven’t taught you everything,” she says with a smile. “Everything
I know and everything I believe I have taught you. And some of it may even be true.
And I am sure that you are safe on your throne at last. Edward has England in his
hand, he has a son to come after him, and you have another baby on the way.” She puts
her head on one side as if she is listening to some distant whisper. “I can’t tell.
I don’t think this is your second boy; but I know you will have another boy, Elizabeth,
I am sure of that. And what a boy he will be! I am sure of that too.”

“You must be with me for the birth of another prince. You would want to see a Prince
of York christened as he should be,” I say plaintively, as if promising her a treat
if she will only stay. “You would be his godmother. I would put him in your keeping.
You could choose his name.”

“Richard,” she says at once. “Call him Richard.”

“So get well and stay with me and see Richard born,” I urge her.

She smiles and I see now the telltale signs that I had not seen before. The weariness
even when she holds herself upright in her chair, the creamy color of her face, and
the brown shadows under her eyes. How could I not have seen these before? I who love
her so
well that I kiss her cheek every day and kneel for her blessing—how could I not have
noticed that she has grown so thin?

I throw the silks aside and kneel at her feet, clasp her hands, suddenly feel that
they are bony, suddenly notice they are freckled with age. I look up into her tired
face. “Mother, you have been with me through everything. You will never leave me now?”

“Not if I could choose to stay,” she says. “But I have felt this pain for years, and
I know it is coming to an end.”

“Since when?” I ask fiercely. “How long have you felt this pain?”

“Since the death of your father,” she says steadily. “The day they told me that he
was dead, that they had beheaded him for treason, I felt something move deep inside
me, like my heart breaking; and I wanted to be with him, even in death.”

“But not to leave me!” I cry selfishly. And then cleverly I add, “And surely, you
cannot bear to leave Anthony?”

She laughs at that. “You both are grown,” she says. “You both can live without me.
You must both learn to live without me. Anthony will go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem
as he longs to do. You will see your son grow to be a man. You will see our little
Elizabeth marry a king and have a crown of her own.”

“I’m not ready!” I cry out like a desolate child. “I can’t manage without you!”

She smiles gently, touches my cheek with her thin hand. “Nobody is ever ready,” she
says tenderly. “But you will manage without me, and through you, and your children,
I will have founded a line of kings in England. Queens as well, I think.”

I am in the last months of my pregnancy, and the court is at the beautiful Palace
at Sheen, a palace for springtime, when we are all convulsed by the enormous, delicious
scandal of the marriage of Edward’s brother Richard. All the more wonderful since
who would ever have thought Richard would be scandalous? George, yes, with his incessant
seeking of his own interest. George would always give the gossip grinders sackfuls
of grist since he cares for no one but George himself. No honor, no loyalty, no affection
prevents George from suiting himself.