The White Queen (44 page)

To be content;

Seeing plainly

Fortune doth wry

All contrary

From mine intent.

This is the
last thing he does at dawn, and then they take him out and behead him on the orders
of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, the new lord protector of England, who is now responsible
for my safety, the safety of all my children, and especially the safety and future
of my son Prince Edward, the rightful King of England.

I read Anthony’s poem later, and I think that I particularly like “Fortune doth wry
/ All contrary / From mine intent.” Fortune has gone against all us Riverses this
season: he was right in that.

And I shall have to find a way to live without him.

Something has changed
between my daughter Elizabeth and me. My girl, my child, my first baby, has suddenly
grown up, grown away. The child who believed that I knew everything, that I commanded
everything, is now a young woman who has lost her father, and doubts her mother. She
thinks I am wrong to keep us in sanctuary. She blames me for the death of her uncle
Anthony. She accuses me—though never saying a word—of failing to rescue her brother
Edward, of sending her little brother Richard out, unprotected, into the gray silence
of the evening river.

She doubts that I have secured a safe hiding place for Richard and that our plan of
the changeling page will work. She knows that if I sent a false prince to keep Edward
company, it is because I doubt my ability to get Edward home safe. She has no hopes
of the uprising that my Grey son Thomas is organizing. She fears that we will never
be rescued.

Ever since the morning when we heard the singing of the river, and then the afternoon
when they brought us the news of Anthony and Richard Grey’s death, she has no faith
in my judgment. She has not repeated her belief that we are cursed, but there is something
about the darkness of her eyes and the pallor of her face that tells me she is hagridden.
God knows, I have not cursed her, and I know no one who would do such a thing to such
a girl of gold and silver, but it is true: she looks as if someone has put a dark
thumbprint down on her and marked her out for a hard destiny.

Dr. Lewis comes again and I ask him to look at her
and tell me if she is well. She has almost stopped eating and she is pale. “She needs
to be free,” he says simply. “I tell you as a physician what I hope to see soon as
an ally. All your children, you yourself, Your Grace, cannot stay here. You need to
be out in the good air, enjoying the summer. She is a delicate girl—she needs exercise
and sunshine. She needs company. She is a young woman—she should be dancing and courting.
She needs to plan her future, to dream of her betrothal, not to be cooped up here,
fearing death.”

“I have an invitation from the king.” I make myself say the title, as if Richard could
ever deserve it, as if the crown on his head and the oil on his breast could make
him anything more than the traitor and the turncoat he is. “The king is anxious that
I take the girls to my house in the country this summer. He says the princes can be
released to me there.”

“And will you go?” He is intent on my answer. He leans forward to hear.

“My boys must be released to me first. I have no guarantee of my safety or that of
my girls unless my boys are returned to me, as he promised they would be.”

“Take care, Your Grace, take care. Lady Margaret fears he will play you false,” he
breathes. “She says the Duke of Buckingham thinks that he will have your boys . .
.” He hesitates as if he cannot bear to say the words. “Done to death. She says that
the Duke of Buckingham is so horrified by this that he will rescue your boys for you,
restore your sons to you, if you will guarantee his safety and his prosperity when
you are
back in power. If you will promise him your friendship, your undying friendship when
you come to your own again. Lady Margaret says that she will bring him to make an
alliance with you and yours. The three families: Stafford, Rivers, and the House of
Lancaster, against the false king.

I nod. I have been waiting for this. “What does he want?” I ask bluntly.

“His daughter, when he has one, to marry your son, the young King Edward,” he says.
“He himself to be named as regent and lord protector till the young king is of age.
He himself to have the kingdom of the north—just as Duke Richard had. If you will
make him as great a duke as your husband made Duke Richard, he will betray his friend
and rescue your sons.”

“And what does she want?” I ask, as if I cannot guess, as if I do not know that she
has spent every day of the last twelve years, ever since her son was exiled, trying
to bring him safely back to England. He is the only child she has ever conceived,
the only heir to her family fortune, to her dead husband’s title. Everything she achieves
in her life will be nothing if she cannot get her son back to England to inherit.

“She wants an agreement that her son can take his title and inherit her lands, her
brother-in-law Jasper restored to his lands in Wales. She wants them both free to
return to England, and she wants to betroth her son Henry Tudor to your daughter Elizabeth,
and to be named as heir after your boys,” he says in a rush.

I do not pause for a moment. I have only been waiting
for the terms and these are exactly what I expected. Not through foreseeing but through
the commonplace sense of what I would demand if I were in Lady Margaret’s strong position:
married to the third greatest man in England, in alliance with the second, planning
to betray the first. “I agree,” I say. “Tell the Duke of Buckingham and tell Lady
Margaret that I agree. And tell them my price: I have to have my sons restored to
me at once.”

Next morning, my
brother Lionel comes to me smiling. “There is someone to see you at the water gate,”
he says. “A fisherman. Greet him quietly, my sister. Remember that discretion is a
woman’s greatest gift.”

I nod and hurry to the door.

Lionel puts a hand on my arm, less a bishop, more a brother. “Don’t shriek like a
girl,” he says bluntly, and lets me go.

I slip through the door and go down the stone steps that lead to the stone corridor.
It is shadowy, lit only by the daylight filtering through the iron gate that opens
out to the river. A little wherry is bobbing at the doorway, a small fishing net piled
in the stern. A man in a filthy cape and a pulled-down hat is waiting at the doorway,
but nothing can disguise his height. Forewarned by Lionel I don’t cry out, and dissuaded
by the stink of old fish I don’t run into his arms. I just say quietly, “Brother,
my brother, I am glad with all my heart to see you.”

A flash of his dark eyes from under the heavy brim
shows me my brother Richard Woodville’s smiling face, villainously covered with a
beard and a mustache. “Are you all right?” I ask, rather shocked at his appearance.

“Never better,” he says jauntily.

“And you know about our brother Anthony?” I ask. “And my son Richard Grey?”

He nods, suddenly grim. “I heard this morning. That’s partly why I came today. I am
sorry, Elizabeth, I am sorry for your loss.”

“You are Earl Rivers now,” I say. “The third Earl Rivers. You are head of the family.
We seem to be getting through heads of our family rather quickly. Do you, please,
hold the title a little longer.”

“I’ll do what I can,” he promises. “God knows, I inherit the title of two good men.
I hope to hold it longer, but I doubt I can do better. Anyway, we are close to an
uprising. Listen to me. Richard feels himself secure with the crown on his head, and
he is to go on progress to show himself to the kingdom.”

I have to stop myself spitting into the water. “I wonder the horses have the brass
neck even to walk.”

“As soon as he is out of London, his guard with him, we will storm the Tower and get
Edward out. The Duke of Buckingham is with us and I trust him. He has to travel with
King Richard, and the king will force Stanley to go with him too—he still doubts him;
but Lady Margaret will stay in London and command the Stanley men and her own affinity
to join us. Already she has her men placed in the Tower.”

“Will we have enough men?”

“Near on a hundred. The new king has made Sir Robert Brackenbury the constable of
the Tower. Brackenbury would never hurt a boy in his care—he is a good man. I have
put new servants in the royal rooms, men who will open the doors for me when I give
them the word.”

“And then?”

“We get you and the girls safely away to Flanders. Your sons, Richard and Edward,
can join you,” he says. “Have you heard from the men who took Prince Richard yet?
Is he safe in hiding?”

“Not yet,” I say fretfully. “I have been looking for a message every day. I should
have heard that he is safe by now. I pray for him every hour. I should have heard
by now.”

“A letter could have gone astray; it means nothing. If it had gone wrong, they would
have sent you news for sure. And just think: you can collect Richard from his hiding
place on your way to Margaret’s court. Once you are with your boys and safe again,
we raise our army. Buckingham will declare for us. Lord Stanley and his whole family
is promised by his wife, Margaret Beaufort. Half of Richard’s other lords are ready
to turn against him, according to the Duke of Buckingham. Lady Margaret’s son Henry
Tudor will raise arms and men in Brittany, and invade Wales.”

“When?” I breathe.

He glances behind him. The river is busy as ever with
ships coming and going, little trading wherries weaving in and out of the bigger boats.
“Duke Richard—” He breaks off and grins at me. “Forgive me, ‘King Richard’ is to leave
London at the end of July on progress. We will rescue Edward at once, and give you
and him long enough to get to safety, say two days, and then, while the king is out
of touch, we will rise.”

“And Edward our brother?”

“Edward is recruiting men in Devon and Cornwall. Your son Thomas is working in Kent.
Buckingham will bring out the men from Dorset and Hampshire, Stanley will bring out
his affinity from the Midlands, and Margaret Beaufort and her son can raise Wales
in the name of the Tudors. All the men of your husband’s household are determined
to save his sons.”

I nibble at my finger, thinking as my husband would have thought: men, arms, money,
and the spread of support around the south of England. “It is enough if we can defeat
Richard before he brings in his men from the north.”

He grins at me, the Riveres’s reckless grin. “It is enough and we have everything
to win and nothing to lose,” he says. “He has taken the crown from our boy: we have
nothing to fear. The worst has already happened.”

“The worst has already happened,” I repeat, and the shiver that goes down my spine
I attribute to the loss of Anthony my brother, my dearest brother, and the death of
my Grey son. “The worst has already
happened. There can be nothing worse than our losses already.”

Richard puts his dirty hand on mine. “Be ready to leave whenever I send the word,”
he says. “I will tell you as soon as I have Prince Edward safe.”

“I will.”

I am waiting at the window, dressed in my traveling cape, my chest of jewels at my
hand, my girls with me, ready to leave. We are silent, we have been silently waiting
for more than an hour. We are straining to hear something, anything, but there is
only the slap of the river against the walls and the occasional burst of music or
laughter from the streets. Elizabeth beside me is tight as a lute string, white with
anxiety.

Then there is a sudden crash of noise, and my brother Lionel comes running into the
sanctuary and slams and bolts the door behind him.

“We failed,” he says, gasping for breath. “Our brothers are safe, your son too. They
got away down the river and Richard went to earth in the Minories, but we couldn’t
take the White Tower.”

“Did you see my boy?” I demand.

He shakes his head. “They had the two boys in there. I heard them shouting orders.
We were so close I could hear them shouting through the door to take the boys inward,
to a more secure chamber. Dear God, sister, forgive me. I was the thickness of a door
away from them but we could not batter it down.”

I sit down as my knees give way beneath me and I
drop the box of jewels to the floor. Elizabeth is ashen. She turns and slowly starts
to take the girls’ capes off, one by one, folding them up, as if it is important that
they are not creased.

“My son,” I say. “My son.”

“We got in through the water gate, and then across the first lane before they even
saw us. We were starting up the steps as someone sounded the alarm, and though we
sprinted up the steps to the door of the White Tower, they slammed it shut. We were
just seconds away from it. Thomas was firing at the locks and we threw ourselves against
it, but I heard the bolts slam from the inside and then they came pouring out of the
guard room. Richard and I turned to face them and we fought, holding them off, while
Thomas and the Stanley men tried to batter the door in, or even lift it from its hinges,
but you know—it is too strong.”