The Kingmaker's Daughter (54 page)

I do not believe that my husband gave the order for the murder of his nephews. I will never believe it. He was secure on his throne, he had declared them as bastards. Nobody on our progress even
mentioned them. They were forgotten and we were accepted. It was only me, talking to the keeper of the Tower, who said that though I could not wish for their death, I knew that I must think of it.
And it was the Constable of the Tower, their gaoler, who remarked that I was tender-hearted. Richard would not have given the order to kill the boys; of that I am sure. But I know I am not the only
person who loves Richard and wants to keep him safe. I know I am not the only person to think that the boys will have to die.

Has one of our loyal friends stooped to such a dark sin as to kill a ten-year-old boy and his twelve-year-old brother while they were in our keeping? While they slept? And worse – has
someone done it thinking to please us? Has someone done it thinking it was my wish? Thinking that I walked with him in the quadrangle of the Oxford college, and then and there actually asked him to
do it?

MIDDLEHAM CASTLE, YORKSHIRE, WINTER 1483

We wait for news, and Richard writes to me almost daily, knowing how anxious I am. He tells me of the mustering of his forces; men are flocking to serve him, and the great
nobles of the realm are turning out to support their king against the duke who was once at his side. His childhood friend Francis Lovell never leaves him, Thomas, Lord Stanley, though his own wife
Margaret Beaufort plotted with Elizabeth Woodville, joins Richard and promises his loyalty. This shows, I think, how little the former queen can appeal to good men. She may have won over Margaret
Beaufort – ambitious for her son and hoping for the throne – but she cannot win Thomas, Lord Stanley, who stays true to us. I don’t forget that Thomas Stanley is a bellwether,
leading the flock where everyone follows. That he is on our side shows that he calculates we are likely to win. John Howard, our good friend, stays faithful too, and Richard writes to me that
Howard is holding down rebels in Sussex and Kent to stop war breaking out against us.

And then God blesses us. It is as simple as that. God is on our side. He sends down the rain that washes the treason out of people’s minds, and the anger out of their hearts as day after
day it pours with cold wintry water as hard as sleet, and the men who were mustering in Kent go home to dry fires, the men who thought they would march out of Sussex learn that the roads are
impassable, and the citizens of London are flooded from their riverside homes and can spare no thought for anything but the rising waters that threaten the low-lying sanctuary where Elizabeth
Woodville has to wait, without news of her rebellion, her messengers stuck where they are, on roads that have churned into mires, gradually losing hope.

God sends rain on Wales and all the little mountain streams that play so prettily through the meadows in midsummer get faster and rougher as the dark waters pour off the mountains into the
bigger streams and then into the rivers. The torrents flood and break their banks and pour into the Severn river, which rises and rises until it breaches all the river walls, spreads for miles in
the valley, maroons one town after another, drowns the riverside villages and – best of all – holds the false Duke of Buckingham in Wales, while his men melt away as if they were sugar
men in the wet, and his hopes become sodden, and he himself runs away from the men that he said he would lead, and his own servant turns him in to us as a traitor for a small reward.

God sends the rain on the narrow seas so they are dark and menacing and Henry Tudor cannot set sail. I know what it is to look out from port and see dark moving water and white caps on the waves
and I laugh, in the warmth and dryness of landlocked Middleham Castle, to think of Henry Tudor, standing on the quayside and praying for fine weather while it rains down unstoppably on his young
auburn head, and not even the woman he hopes will be his mother-in-law, the witch Elizabeth, can hold back the storm.

There is a break in the weather and he sets sail bravely enough, crossing the rough seas, but his hopes have been chilled by the long wait and he does not even land. He takes a look at the coast
that he plans to call his own and he cannot even find within himself the courage to set foot on the wet sand. He reefs his sodden sails and turns his boat for home and runs before a cold wind back
to Brittany, where he should stay forever, if he would take my advice, and die like all pretenders, in exile. Richard writes to me from London.

WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON, NOVEMBER 1483

Just as we are readying ourselves for the Christmas feast – a feast which Richard swears will be the grandest that London has ever seen – just as people start to
arrive at court and are allocated their rooms, told their parts in the entertainments, and learn the new dances, Richard comes looking for me and finds me in the great rooms of the wardrobe,
looking over the gowns that belonged to the other queens, and now belong to me. I am planning to take apart two beautiful old-fashioned gowns of cloth of gold and deep purple to make a new one,
layered in a new pattern with purple sleeves slashed to show the gold beneath, gathered with a gold braid at the wrist. On either side of me are great bales of cloth for more new gowns, and furs
and velvets for new capes and jackets for Richard himself. He looks ill at ease, but he always looks ill at ease, these days. The crown sits heavily on him, and he can trust no-one.

‘Can you leave this?’ Richard asks, looking doubtfully at the mountains of priceless cloth.

‘Oh yes,’ I say, lifting my gown and picking my way over the cuttings on the floor. ‘My lady wardrobe mistress knows far better than I what is to be done.’

He takes me by the arm and draws me to the little area off the main wardrobe room, where the wardrobe mistress usually sits to make her audit of the furs, gowns, robes and shoes in her keeping.
There is a warm fire burning in the grate and Richard takes the seat by the table and I perch on the window seat and wait.

‘I have taken a decision,’ he says heavily. ‘I did not take it lightly, and still I want to talk it over with you.’

I wait. It will be about the Woodville woman, I know it. I can tell by the way he is holding his right arm, between the elbow and the shoulder. This is a constant pain for him now, and no
physician can tell him what is wrong. I know, though I have no proof, that the pain is of her doing. I imagine her knotting a rag around her own arm, feeling it prickle and go numb, and then
wishing the pain on him.

‘It’s about Henry Tudor,’ he says.

I stiffen in my seat. I did not expect this.

‘He is going to hold a betrothal ceremony in Rennes cathedral. He is going to declare himself King of England and betrothed to Elizabeth.’

For a moment I forget the daughter in thinking of the ill-will of the mother. ‘Elizabeth Woodville?’

‘Her daughter, Elizabeth Princess of York.’

The familiar name of Edward’s favourite daughter falls into the cosy little room, and I think of the girl with skin like a warm pearl, and the smiling charm of her father. ‘He said
she was his most precious child,’ Richard says quietly. ‘When we had to fight our way home from Flanders he said that he would do it for her, even if everyone else was dead. And that it
would be worth any risk to see her smile again.’

‘She was always terribly spoiled,’ I say. ‘They took her everywhere, and she always put herself forwards.’

‘And now she is up to my shoulder and a beauty. I wish Edward could see her, I think she is even more beautiful than her mother was at that age. She is a woman grown – you would not
know her.’

With a slow uncoiling of anger I realise that he is speaking of her as she is now. He has been to see her, he has been to see the Woodville woman and he has seen Elizabeth. While I have been
here, preparing for the Christmas court that is to celebrate our coming to power, he has slipped away to the dark hovel that is her choice. ‘You have seen her?’

He shrugs as if it does not much matter. ‘I had to go and see the queen,’ he says.

I am the queen. It seems that he has made one visit to the Woodville woman and forgotten everything that we hold dear. Everything that we have fought to win.

‘I wanted to ask her about the boys.’

‘No!’ I cry out, and then I put my hand over my mouth so that no-one can hear my arguing with my husband, the king. ‘My lord, I beg you. How could you do such a thing? Why
would you do such a thing?’

‘I had to know.’ He looks haunted. ‘They told me of Buckingham’s rebellion and his words at the same time. One was as bad as the other. I wrote to you at once.’

Buckingham is telling everyone that the princes are dead and by my hand.

I nod. ‘I remember. But . . .’

‘I sent at once to the Tower, as soon as I heard that everyone was saying they were dead. All they could tell me was that the boys were gone. As soon as I got to London, the first thing I
did was go to the Tower. Robert was there—’

‘Robert?’ I ask, as if I have forgotten the name of the Constable of the Tower. Robert Brackenbury, who looked at me with his honest understanding and said, ‘Oh, you’re
tenderhearted’ when I said that the boys should be killed, but that I could not bring myself to give the order in so many words.

‘Brackenbury,’ he says. ‘A true friend. He would be true to me. He would do anything for me.’

‘Oh yes,’ I say, and I can feel dread in my belly as if I have been drinking ice. ‘I know he would do anything for you.’

‘He doesn’t know what has happened to the boys. He is the Constable of the Tower and he did not know. All he could say was that when he got to the Tower the boys were gone. All the
guards would say was that they put them to bed one night and guarded the door all night and in the morning they were gone.’

‘How could they just go?’

His old energy returns. ‘Well, someone must be lying. Someone must have bribed a guard.’

‘But who?’

‘I thought perhaps the queen had taken them. I was praying that she had taken them. That’s why I went to see her. I said to her, I won’t even pursue them, I won’t even
try to find them. If you have smuggled them away somewhere, they can stay there in safety. But I have to know.’

‘What did she say? The Woodville woman?’

‘She went down on her knees and she wept like a woman who knows heartbreak. There is no doubt in my mind that she has lost her sons and she doesn’t know who has them. She asked me if
I had taken them. She said she would put a curse on whoever has killed them, if they are dead, that her curse would take the murderer’s son and his line would die without issue. Her daughter
joined with her in the curse – they were terrifying.’