The Kingmaker's Daughter (29 page)

She turns and gestures to the ladies behind her and my courage fails me as my sister Isabel stalks forwards. I cannot stop myself shrinking back against the comforting shoulder of Richard, my
husband, who stands beside me as Isabel, pale and contemptuous, sweeps us both the most shallow curtsey.

‘And here you are, Warwick’s daughters, and yet both royal duchesses and both my sisters,’ the queen says, her voice lilting with laughter. ‘Who would ever have thought
it? Your father gets his first choice of sons-in-law from the grave. How happy you must be!’

Her brother Anthony glances at her as if they are sharing a joke about us. ‘Clearly, a joyous reunion of the Neville sisters,’ he observes.

Isabel steps forwards as if she is embracing me and holds me close so that she can whisper fiercely in my ear. ‘You have shamed yourself and embarrassed me. We didn’t even know where
you were. Running off like a kitchen slut! I can’t imagine what Father would have said!’

I twist out of her grip and face her. ‘You had me as your prisoner and you were stealing my inheritance,’ I say hotly. ‘What would he have thought of that? What did you think I
would do? Bow down and worship George just because you do? Or did you wish me dead like you wish our own mother?’

In a quick gesture she raises her hand, and then instantly snatches it down again. But she has showed everyone that she longs to slap my face. The queen laughs out loud, Isabel turns her back on
me, Richard shrugs, bows to the queen, and draws me away.

Across the room, someone tells George that there has been a quarrel and he comes quickly to stand beside Isabel and glare angrily at Richard and me. For a moment Isabel and I are open enemies,
staring across the great hall at each other, neither of us ready to back down, Isabel standing beside her husband, me with mine. Then Richard touches my arm and we go to be introduced to the new
earl. I greet him pleasantly and we talk for a few moments and then there is a lull. I turn, I cannot help but look back, as if I hope that she would call me over to her, as if I hope that we might
make friends again. She is laughing and talking with one of the queen’s ladies. ‘Iz . . .’ I say quietly. But she does not hear me, and only as Richard leads me away do I think I
hear, like a tiny whisper, her call to me: ‘Annie.’

This is not the last family greeting I undertake this autumn season, for I have to meet with Richard’s formidable mother, the Duchess Cecily. We go to Fotheringhay, riding
up the Great North Road in bright sunny weather to her home. She is in all but exile from the court, her hatred of her daughter-in-law the queen meant that she did not attend most of the major
court festivities, and when she joined with George against his brother for the rebellion, she lost the remnants of love she had been able to exact from her son Edward. They all keep up appearances
when they can; she still has a London house and visits court from time to time, but the queen’s influence is clear. Duchess Cecily is not a welcomed guest; Fotheringhay is partly repaired and
equipped, and given to her as her home. I am cheerful, riding beside Richard, until he says with a sideways glance at me: ‘You know we go through Barnet? The battle was fought along the
road.’

Of course I knew it; but I had not thought that we would ride along the actual road where my father died, where Richard, fighting with his brother, uphill against terrible odds, was able to come
out of the mist, surprise my father’s forces and kill him. It is the battlefield where Midnight did his last great task for his master: putting down his black head and taking a sword into his
great heart to show the men that there would be no retreat, no running away and no surrender.

‘We’ll skirt round,’ Richard says, seeing my face.

He orders his guard and they open a gate for us, so we leave the road to circle the battlefield by riding through the pastures and over the stubble of oat crops, and then rejoin the Great North
Road on the northern side of the little town. Every step my horse takes I flinch, thinking that he is treading on bones, and I think of my betrayal, riding alongside my husband, the enemy who
killed my father.

‘There’s a little chapel,’ Richard volunteers. ‘It’s not a forgotten battle. He’s not forgotten. Edward and I pay for masses to be said for his
soul.’

‘Do you?’ I say. ‘I didn’t know.’ I can hardly speak, I am so torn by guilt that I should be married into the house which my father named as his enemy.

‘I loved him too, you know,’ Richard says quietly. ‘He raised me, like he raised all of his wards, as if we were more to him than boys for whom he would get a fee. He was a
good guardian to all of us. Edward and I thought of him as our leader, as our older brother. We couldn’t have done without him.’

I nod. I don’t say that my father only turned against Edward because of the queen, because of her grasping family and her wicked advice. If Edward had not married her . . . if Edward had
never met her . . . if Edward had not been enchanted by her and her mother and their potent brew of sensuality and spells . . . but this is just to open a lifetime of regret. ‘He loved
you,’ is all I say. ‘And Edward.’

Richard shakes his head, knowing as I do where the fault lay, where it still lies: with Edward’s wife: ‘It’s a tragedy,’ he says.

I nod, and we ride on to Fotheringhay in silence.

FOTHERINGHAY CASTLE, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE, AUTUMN 1472

The castle, Richard’s birthplace and his family’s house, is in disrepair, and has been ever since the wars started and the Yorks could only spend money fortifying
the castles that they needed as bases for rebellion against the sleeping king and the bad queen. Richard frowns as he looks at the outer wall that is bowing dangerously over the moat, and
scrutinises the roof of the castle where the rooks are making bundles of twiggy nests on the leads.

The duchess greets me warmly, though I am the third secret bride in her family. ‘But I always wanted Richard to marry you,’ she assured me. ‘I must have discussed it with your
mother a dozen times. That was why I was so pleased that Richard was made your father’s ward, I wanted you to know each other. I always hoped you would be my daughter-in-law.’

She welcomes us into the smaller hall of the castle, a wood-panelled room with a great fire built at either end, and three huge tables laid for dinner: one for the menservants, one for the women
servants and one table for the nobility. The duchess, Richard and I and a few of her kinswomen take the top table and oversee the hall. ‘We live very simply,’ she says, though she has
hundreds of servants and a dozen guests. ‘We don’t try to compete with Her and Her court. Burgundian fashions,’ she says darkly. ‘And every sort of extravagance.’

‘My brother the king sends you his good wishes,’ Richard says formally. He kneels to his mother and she puts her hand on his head in blessing. ‘And how is George?’ she
asks at once, naming her favourite. Richard winks at me. The overt favouritism of the duchess was an open joke in the family until the moment when it led her to favour George’s claim to the
throne. That was too far, even for the indulgent affection of the king.

‘He is well, though we are still trying to settle the inheritance of our wives,’ Richard says.

‘A bad business.’ She shakes her head. ‘A good estate should never be broken up. You should make an agreement with him, Richard. You are the younger son after all. You should
give way to your brother George.’

This favouritism is less amusing. ‘I follow my own counsel,’ Richard says stiffly. ‘George and I will agree to share the Warwick fortune. I would be a poor husband to Anne if I
let her inheritance be thrown away.’

‘Better to be a poor husband than a poor brother,’ she says smartly. ‘Look at your brother Edward, under the cat’s-paw and betraying his family every moment of the
day.’

‘Edward has been a good friend to me in this,’ Richard reminds her. ‘And he has always been a good brother to me.’

‘It’s not his judgement I fear,’ she says darkly. ‘It’s Hers. You wait till your ambitions run counter to hers and then see whose advice Edward will take. She will
be his ruin.’

‘Indeed, I pray not,’ Richard says. ‘Shall we dine, Lady Mother?’

Her theme, the ruination of the family by the scheming of Elizabeth Woodville, is a constant one throughout our visit, and though Richard silences her as frequently and as
politely as he can, it is impossible to deny the many cases she cites. It is apparent to everyone that the queen gets her way and Edward allows her to put her friends and family into places that
belong to other men, she exploits her royal fees more than any queen has done before, and favours her brothers and sisters. Richard will not hear a word said against his brother the king; but at
Fotheringhay nobody loves Elizabeth Woodville and the radiant young woman that I first saw on the great night of her triumph is quite forgotten in the picture of the grasping ill-wisher that the
duchess describes.

‘She should never have been crowned queen,’ she whispers to me one day when we are sitting in her solar, carefully embroidering the cuffs of a shirt which the duchess will send to
her favourite, George, for Christmas.

‘Should she not?’ I ask. ‘I remember her coronation so well, I was only a little girl and I thought her the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life.’

A scornful shrug shows what this ageing beauty now thinks about good looks. ‘She should never have been crowned queen because the wedding was never valid,’ she whispers behind her
hand. ‘We all knew that Edward was secretly married before he even met her. He was not free to marry her. We all said nothing while your father planned the match with Princess Bona of Savoy
because such a secret marriage could be denied – must be denied when such a great chance presents itself. But the oaths Edward swore with Elizabeth were just another secret marriage, actually
a bigamous marriage – and it should have been denied too.’

‘Her mother was witness . . .’

‘That witch would have sworn to anything for her children.’

‘But Edward made her queen,’ I point out. ‘And their children are royal.’

She shakes her head and nips off the thread with her sharp little teeth. ‘Edward has no right to be king,’ she says, speaking very softly.

I drop my work. ‘Your Grace . . .’ I am terrified of what she is going to say next. Is this the old scandal that my father circulated when he wanted to drive Edward from the throne?
Is the duchess about to accuse herself of wanton adultery? And how much trouble will I be in if I know this enormous, this terrible state secret?

She laughs at my aghast face. ‘Oh, you’re such a child!’ she says unkindly. ‘Who would trust you with anything? Who would bother telling you anything? Remind me, how old
are you?’

‘I am sixteen,’ I say with all the dignity I can muster.

‘A child,’ she mocks. ‘I’ll say no more. But you remember that George is not my favourite because I am a doting fool. George is my favourite for good reason, very good
reason. He was born to be a king, that boy. That boy – and no other.’

WINDSOR CASTLE, CHRISTMAS 1472