The White Princess (41 page)

She shrugs. “You don’t need me to tell you that a commander who has mustered ships and an army is planning an invasion.”

“But when?”

“When they think that the time is right.”

“Do they have a leader from the House of York?”

Her joy blooms in a smile that warms her whole face. She looks so filled with happiness that despite myself, I find I am smiling back at her radiance. “Ah, Elizabeth,” she whispers. “You know I have always thought it better that you should know nothing.”

“Mother, I have to know. Tell me what makes you look so happy.”

She looks like a girl again, she is so rosy and joyful, and her eyes are so bright. “I know that I did not send my son to his death,” she says. “In the end, that’s all I care about. That, loving my husband more than the world itself, I did not fail him in that one great act. I did not foolishly betray both his sons to his enemy. I didn’t trust like a fool when I should have been careful. My greatest joy as I face the last of my days is that I did not fail my sons, my husband, or my house.

“I couldn’t save Edward, my beloved son, the Prince of Wales, as I should have done. I told them to come quickly, and I warned them to come armed; but they weren’t prepared to fight. I couldn’t save Edward, as I should have done. It’s weighed on my heart that I did not warn him to come to me without stopping for anything. But, thank God, I could save Richard. And I did save Richard.”

I give a little gasp and my hand goes to my belly, as if to hold the unborn Tudor safe. “He’s alive?”

She nods. That’s all she will do. She won’t even trust me with a word.

“He’s in Ireland? And sailing from there, to England?”

Now she shrugs, as if she knows she did not send him to his death but what he did after, and where he is now, she will not say.

“But Mother, what shall I do?”

She looks at me steadily, waiting for more.

“Mother, think of me for a moment! What should I do if my brother is alive and he comes at the head of an army, to fight my husband for the throne? The throne that should go to my son? What should I do? When my brother comes to my door with his sword in his hand? Am I Tudor or York?”

Gently, she takes both my hands in hers. “Dearest, don’t distress yourself. It’s bad for you and for the baby.”

“But what am I to do?”

She smiles. “You know you can do nothing. What will be, will be. If there is a battle”—I gasp but her smile is steady—“if there is a battle, then either your husband will win, and your son will take the throne; or your brother will win and you will be sister to the king.”

“My brother, the king,” I say flatly.

“Better that you and I never speak such words,” she says. “But I am glad to have seen the day that you could tell me that England is waiting for the boy that I sent out into the darkness—not knowing what might become of him, not even knowing if the little boat would go safely downriver. My heart has ached for him, Elizabeth, and I have spent many, many nights on my knees for him, hoping for his safety, knowing nothing for sure. I pray that your boy never leaves you and you never have to watch him go, not knowing if he will come back again.” She sees my anxious face and her beautiful smile gleams out at me. “Ah, Elizabeth! Here you are, well and happy, two boys in your nursery and a new baby in your belly, and you tell me that my son is coming home—how can I be anything but filled with joy?”

“If this boy is your son,” I remind her.

“Of course.”

GREENWICH PALACE, LONDON, JUNE 1492

Maggie goes into her confinement and gives birth to a baby boy. Tactfully, they call him Henry in tribute to her husband’s beloved king. I visit her and hold her adorable little boy before I have to prepare for my own withdrawal from court.

Henry arrives home just before I enter my confinement, and presides over the great dinner that celebrates my departure from court for the long six weeks before the birth and then the month before I am churched and can come back.

“May I send for my mother?” I ask him as we walk together towards the confinement chamber.

“You can ask her,” he concedes. “But she’s not well.”

“The abbot wrote to you? And not to me? Why did he not write at once to me?”

His quick grimace tells me that he has learned this not in a letter but as a secret from his spy network. “Oh,” I say, realizing. “You are watching her? Even now?”

“I have every reason to think that she is at the very center of the plotting of the Irish and the French,” he says quietly. “And it won’t be the first time she’s called the doctor just to send a secret message.”

“And the boy?” I ask.

Henry makes a small grimace; I can see him swallow down
his apprehension. “Slipped away. Again. He didn’t trust Pregent Meno, his former friend; he didn’t take the bait I sent him. He’s gone somewhere. I don’t even know where. Probably France. He’s somewhere out there.” He shakes his head. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll find him. And I won’t talk of this with you when you are about to go into confinement. Go in with a quiet heart, Elizabeth, and give me a handsome son. Nothing keeps the boy more firmly from our door than our own princes. You can send for your mother if you wish, and she can stay with you till after the birth.”

“Thank you,” I say. He takes my hand and kisses it, then, with the whole court watching, he kisses me gently on the mouth. “I love you,” he says quietly into my ear. I can feel his warm breath on my cheek. “I wish for both of us that we could be at peace.”

For a moment I almost hesitate, wanting to tell him what I know, wanting to warn him that my mother is radiant with hope, certain that she will see her son again. For a moment I want to confess to him that I sent a page boy into the Tower in place of my brother, that among the princes who rise against him, the legion of princes, there may be one who is a true prince—the little boy who set out from sanctuary in a cloak too big for him, who had to sail away from his mother in a little boat on the dark water, who will come back to England and take the throne from our son if he can, whose claims we will have to face together someday.

Almost I speak; but then I see the pale guarded face of his mother among the smiling court, and I think that I dare not tell this suspicious family that the thing they fear most in the world is indeed true, and that I played a part in it.

“God bless you,” he says, and whispers again: “I love you.”

“And I you,” I say, surprising myself. And I turn and go into the shadowy room.

I write to my mother that evening and I receive a brief reply to say that she will come when she is well, but that just now the pain in her heart is a little worse and she is too weary to travel. She asks if Bridget can join her in the convent, and I send my little sister at once, telling her to bring my mother to court as soon as she is well enough. I pass my days in the shaded rooms of my confinement apartment, sewing and reading and listening to calming music from the lutenists who are kept on the other side of the screen, for the benefit of my modesty and of theirs. I am bored in the darkened rooms and it is hot and stuffy. I sleep lightly at night and doze during the day so that I think I am dreaming, floating between wakefulness and sleep, when one night I am awakened by a clear sweet sound, like a flute, or like a chorister singing one note very softly outside my window.

I slip from my bed and lift the tapestry to look out, almost expecting to see carolers outside my window, the sound is so pure, echoing against the stone walls; but all there is to see is a waning moon, curved like a horseshoe floating in a sea of stormy dark-headed clouds which blow past it and over it, though the thick heads of the trees are still and there is no wind. The river gleams like silver in the moonlight, and still I hear the sweet clear noise like plainsong, soaring into the vault of the sky like a choir in a church.

For a moment only I am bewildered, then I recognize the sound, I remember the song. This is the noise that we heard when we were in sanctuary and my brothers disappeared from the Tower. My mother told me then that this is the song the women of our family hear when there is to be a death of one they love very dearly, one of the family. It is the banshee calling her child home, it is the goddess Melusina, the founder of our family, singing a lament for one of her children. As soon as I hear it, as soon as I understand it, I know that my mother, my beloved, beautiful, mischievous mother, is dead. And only she knew, when she told me that she was certain that she would see Richard, whether she meant
she would see him on earth or whether she was certain they would meet in heaven.

Henry breaks his own mother’s rules about the confinement of the queen, and comes himself to the screen in my chamber to tell me of her death. He is inarticulate, struggling with his duty to tell me and his fear of causing me grief. His face is fixed, expressionless, he is so anxious that I shall see no trace of the huge relief that he feels that such a dangerous opponent is out of his way. Of course, it is only natural for him to rejoice that if a new pretender emerges from the darkness of the past, at least my mother is not here to recognize him. But for me this is nothing but loss.

“I know,” I say as Henry stumbles on false words of regret, and I put my finger through the grille to touch his fist as he grips on the metal. “You need not be distressed, Henry. You don’t have to tell me. I knew last night that she had died.”

“How? Nobody came from the abbey till my servant this morning.”

“I just knew it,” I say. There is no point telling Henry or his mother about something that would frighten them, seeming like witchcraft. “You know how your mother hears God speak to her in prayer? I had something like that, and I knew.”

“A godly vision?” he confirms.

“Yes,” I lie.

“I am so sorry for your loss, Elizabeth, I truly am. I know how much you loved her.”

“Thank you,” I say quietly, and then I leave him at the grille and go into the confinement chamber and sit down. I know that he will be thinking her death makes him safer; he cannot help but be glad that she has died. Even as he puts on mourning his heart will be singing with relief. Alive, my mother was a figurehead for the York rebels, and any endorsement from her of a pretend boy would make him as good as a real prince. Her recognition of any pretender as
her son would invalidate Henry’s claim to the throne. She could always have destroyed his claim with one word. He could never be sure that she would not say that word. Her death is the best thing that could have happened for Henry and his hard-hearted mother.

But not for me.

As I wait in the quiet confinement room for my baby to come, I cannot imagine what my life will be without her. I understand that her death is the best thing that could have happened for Henry.

But not for me.