The Kingmaker's Daughter (55 page)

‘She cursed us?’ I whisper through cold lips.

‘Not us! I didn’t order their deaths!’ he shouts at me in a sudden explosion of rage that echoes off the wooden panelling of the little room. ‘I didn’t order their
deaths! Everybody thinks I did. Do you think so too? My own wife? You think I would do that? You think that I would murder my own nephews when they were in my keeping? You think I would do
something as sinful, as criminal, as dishonourable as that? You call me a tyrant with blood on my hands? You? Of all the people in the world who know what I am? You who know that I have spent my
life pledging my sword and my heart to honour? You too think me a killer?’

‘No, no, no, Richard.’ I catch his hands and shake my head and swear that I know he would not do such a thing. I stumble over my words before his furious face and the tears come, and
I cannot tell him – dear God, I cannot tell him – no, it is not you but it might have been me who ordered their deaths. It might have been my careless speech, my thinking aloud which
prompted this. And so it is my sin that will draw the curse of the Woodville woman onto the heads of my Edward so that our line is without a son like hers. In that one moment, when I thought I was
protecting us, when I dropped a word into Robert Brackenbury’s ear, I destroyed my future and everything my father worked for. I have drawn on my beloved son’s head the righteous enmity
of the most dangerous witch in England. If Robert Brackenbury thought he heard an order in my words, if he did what he thought was my bidding, if he did what he thought was best for Richard, then I
have killed her sons and her revenge will be thorough. I have destroyed my own future.

‘There was no need for me to kill them,’ he says. To my ears, his voice is an exculpatory whine. ‘I had them safe. I had them declared bastards. The country supported my
coronation, my progress was a success, we were accepted everywhere, acclaimed. I was going to send them to Sheriff Hutton and keep them there, safe. That’s why I wanted it rebuilt. In a few
years’ time, when they were young men, I was going to release them and honour them as my nephews, command them to come to court to serve us. Keep them under my eye, treat them as royal
kinsmen . . .’ He breaks off. ‘I was going to be a good uncle to them, as I am to George’s boy and his girl. I was going to care for them.’

‘It would never have worked!’ I cry out. ‘Not with her as their mother. George’s boy is one thing, Isabel was my beloved sister; but none of the Woodville woman’s
children will ever be anything but our most deadly enemy!’

‘We’ll never know,’ he says simply. He gets to his feet, rubbing his upper arm as if it has gone numb. ‘Now, we’ll never know what men those two boys might have
been.’

‘She is our enemy,’ I tell him again, amazed that he is such a fool he cannot remember this. ‘She has betrothed her daughter to Henry Tudor. He was all set to invade England
and put the Woodville bastard girl on the throne as queen. She is our enemy and you should be dragging her out of sanctuary and imprisoning her in the Tower, not going in secret to visit her. Not
going to her as if you were not the victor, the king. Not going and meeting her daughter – that spoiled ninny.’ I break off at the dark rage in his face. ‘Spoiled ninny,’ I
repeat defiantly. ‘What will you tell me: that she is a princess beyond price?’

‘She is our enemy no more,’ he says briefly, as if all his rage has burned out. ‘She has turned her rage on Margaret Beaufort. She suspects her, not me, of kidnapping or
killing the princes. Their deaths make Henry Tudor the next heir, after all. Who gains from the deaths of the boys? Only Henry Tudor, who is the next heir of the House of Lancaster. Once she
acquitted me she had to blame Tudor and his mother. So she turned against the rebellion, and she will deny the betrothal to him. She will oppose his claim.’

I am open-mouthed. ‘She is changing sides?’

He smiles wryly. ‘We can make peace, she and I,’ he says. ‘I have offered to release her to house arrest, somewhere of my choosing, and she has agreed to go. She can’t
stay in sanctuary for the rest of her life. She wants to get out. And those girls are growing up as pale as little lilies in shade. They need to be out in the fields. The older girl is simply
exquisite, like a statue in pearl. If we set her free she will bloom like a rose.’

I can taste jealousy in my mouth like the bile that rushes under my tongue when I am about to be sick. ‘And where is this rose to bloom?’ I ask acidly. ‘Not in one of my
houses. I will not have her under my roof.’

He is looking at the fire but now he turns his beloved dark face to me. ‘I thought we might take the three oldest girls to court,’ he says. ‘I thought they might serve in your
household, if you will agree. These are Edward’s daughters, York girls, they are your nieces. You should love them as you do little Margaret. I thought you might keep them under your eye and
when the time comes we will find good husbands for them and see them settled.’

I lean back against the stone windowframe and feel the welcome coldness against my shoulders. ‘You want them to come and live with me?’ I ask him. ‘The Woodville
daughters?’

He nods, as if I might find this an agreeable plan. ‘You couldn’t ask for a more beautiful maid in waiting than the Princess Elizabeth,’ he says.

‘Mistress Elizabeth,’ I correct him through my teeth. ‘You declared her mother a whore and her a bastard. She is Mistress Elizabeth Grey.’

He laughs shortly as if he had forgotten. ‘Oh yes.’

‘And the mother?’

‘I will settle her in the country. John Nesfield is as trustworthy as any of my men. I will put her and the younger girls in his house and he can watch them for me.’

‘They will be under arrest?’

‘They will be kept close enough.’

‘Kept in the house?’ I press. ‘Locked in?’

He shrugs. ‘As Nesfield sees fit, I suppose.’

I understand at once that Elizabeth Woodville is to be a lady of a fine country house once more and her daughters will live as maids in waiting at my court. They are to be as free as joyous
birds in the air and Elizabeth Woodville is to triumph again.

‘When is all this going to happen?’ I ask, thinking he will say in the spring. ‘In April? May?’

‘I thought the girls might come to court at once,’ he says.

I round on him at that, I leap from my window seat and stand. ‘This is our first Christmas as king and queen,’ I say, my voice trembling with passion. ‘This is the court where
we stamp ourselves on the kingdom, where people will see us in our crowns and tell of our clothes and entertainments and joy. This is when people start to make a legend about our court and say it
is as beautiful and as joyous and as noble as Camelot. You want Elizabeth Woodville’s daughters to sit at the table and eat their Christmas dinner at this – our first Christmas? Why not
tell everyone that nothing has really changed? It is you on the throne instead of Edward but the Rivers still hold court and the witch still holds sway, and the blood of my sister and your brother,
and their little baby, is still on her hands, and nobody accuses her.’

He comes to me and takes me by the elbow, feeling me tremble with rage. ‘No,’ he says gently. ‘No. I hadn’t thought. I see it would not do. This is your court, not hers.
I know that. You are queen, I know that, Anne. Be calm. Nobody will spoil your time. They can come after Christmas, later when all the agreements have been properly drawn up. We need not have them
earlier, spoiling the feast.’

He soothes me, as he has always been able to do. ‘Spoiling it?’

‘They would spoil it.’ He lulls me with the sweetness of his voice. ‘I don’t want them there. I only want to be with you. They can stay in their cellar until after
Christmas and only when you think the time is right will we release them.’

I am quietened by his touch like a gentled mare. ‘Very well,’ I breathe. ‘But not before.’

‘No,’ he says. ‘Not until you think the time is right. It shall be you who judges the right time, Anne. You are Queen of England and you shall have no-one in your household but
those of your choice. You shall only have the women that you like around you. I would not force you to have women that you fear or dislike.’

‘I don’t fear them,’ I correct him. ‘I am not jealous of them.’

‘No indeed,’ he says. ‘And you have no cause at all. You shall invite them when you are ready and not before.’

We spend Christmas in London without the children. I had hoped up to the very last days of November that they would come. Edward is well enough but our physician advised that he
is not strong enough for a long journey on bad roads. They said that he should stay at Middleham, where our physicians, who know his health, will take care of him. They say that such a long journey
in such bad weather would be bound to strain his health. I think of little Prince Richard when I last saw him, just the age of my Edward, but a good head taller and rosy-cheeked and full of high
spirits. Edward does not bubble with life, he does not always have to be up and doing. He will sit quietly with a book, and he goes to bed without arguing. In the morning he finds it hard to
rise.

He eats well enough, but the cooks take great trouble to send up dainty dishes with tempting sauces. I have never once seen him go with Margaret and Teddy down to the kitchens to steal offcuts
of pastry from the table, or beg the bakers for a bread roll, hot from the oven. He never filches cream from the dairy, he never loiters for trimmings from the roasting spit.

I try not to fear for him; he does his schoolwork with pleasure, he rides out on his horse with his cousins, he will play at tennis with them, or archery, or bowls, but he is always the first to
stop the game, or turn away and sit for a few moments, or laugh and say that he has to catch his breath. He is not sturdy, he is not strong, he is in fact just as you would expect a boy to be if he
had spent his life under a curse from a distant witch.

Of course I don’t know if she has ever cursed my son. But sometimes when he sits at my feet and leans his head against my knees and I touch his head, I think that since her ill-will has
blighted my life, I would not be surprised to know that it has burdened my son. And now that Richard speaks of a new curse laid down by the witch Elizabeth and her apprentice-witch daughter, on the
murderer of their princes, I fear even more that the Rivers’ malice is directed at me and my boy.

I command the physicians at Middleham to send me a letter every three days telling me how the children are. The letters get through the snowy weather in the North and the
thickly bogged roads in the south and assure me that Edward is in good spirits, playing with his cousins, enjoying the wintry weather, sledging and skating on the ice. He is well. I can be of good
heart. He is well.

Even without the children Richard is determined that we shall have a merry Christmas at court. We are a victorious court; everyone who comes to feast, to dance, or merely to watch knows that
this first Christmas of our reign is made more joyful by knowing that when we were challenged – challenged in the first weeks of our reign by the former queen herself, and an untried boy who
calls himself king – we were supported. England does not want Henry Tudor, England has forgotten the Rivers boys, is content to leave the Woodville queen in sanctuary. She is finished. That
reign is over and this Christmas proclaims that ours is begun.

Every day we have entertainments, hunts, boating, contests, jousts, and dances. Richard commands the best musicians and playwrights to court, poets come and write songs for us and the chapel is
filled with sacred music from the choir. Every day there is a new amusement for the court, and every day Richard gives me a little gift – a priceless pearl brooch or a pair of scented leather
gloves, three new riding horses to take North for the children, or a great luxury – a barrel of preserved oranges from Spain. He showers me with gifts and at night comes to my grand
apartments and spends the night with me, wrapping me in his arms as if only by holding me tightly can he believe that he has indeed made me queen.

Sometimes in the night I wake, and look at the tapestry which is hung over the bed, woven with scenes of gods and goddesses victorious and lolling on clouds. I think that I too should feel
victorious. I am where my father wanted me to be. I am the greatest lady in the land – never again need I fear treading on someone’s train – for now everyone follows me. But just
as I am smiling at that thought, my mind goes to my son in the cold dales of Yorkshire, to his slight frame and the pallor of his skin. I think of the witch who still lives in sanctuary and will be
celebrating her release this Christmas, and I take Richard in my embrace and feel for his sword arm, gently spanning it with my hand, as he is sleeping, to see if it is indeed wasting and withering
as he thinks. I can’t tell. Is Elizabeth Woodville a defeated widow whom I can pity? Or is she the greatest enemy to my family and to my peace?