I flinch at the thought that my father is not at peace. ‘Ah don’t, Iz,’ I say hastily. ‘I pay enough for masses to be said for his soul in every one of our churches. Don’t say such things. Look, I’ll leave you to rest. The birthing ale has gone to your head. You shouldn’t say such things and I won’t hear them. I am married to a loyal brother of the king and so are you. Let that be the truth. Anything else will only lead us into danger and defeat. Anything else is a sword through the heart.’
We don’t mention the conversation again and when I leave them, and George himself helps me onto my horse, thanking me for caring for Isabel in her time, I wish him every happiness and that the child grows strong and well.
‘Perhaps she will have a boy next time,’ he says. His handsome face is discontented, his charm quite overshadowed by such a setback, his smiling mouth is downturned. He is as sulky as a spoiled child.
For a moment I want to remind him that she had a boy, a beautiful baby boy, a boy who would have been the son and heir that he now wants so badly, a boy who would have been running around the hall now, a sturdy three-year-old with his nursemaid hurrying behind him; but that Iz was so shaken by the pounding waves on board my father’s ship that she could not give birth to him, and she had no-one but me as a midwife, and the baby’s little coffin was slipped into the grey heaving seas.
‘Perhaps next time,’ I say soothingly. ‘But she is a very pretty girl, and feeding well and growing strong.’
‘Stronger than your boy?’ he asks nastily. ‘What d’you call him: Edward? Was that in memory of your dead husband? Funny sort of tribute.’
‘Edward for the king of course,’ I say, biting my lip.
‘And is our baby stronger than yours?’
‘Yes, I think so.’ It hurts me to say the truth but little Margaret is a wiry hungry baby and is doing well at once, and my baby is quiet, and is not thriving.
He shrugs. ‘Well, it makes no odds. A girl’s no good. A girl can’t take the throne,’ he says, turning away. I can hardly hear, but I am sure that is what he says. For a moment I think to challenge him, to dare him to repeat it, and warn him that this is to talk treason. But then I gather my reins in my cold hands and think better that he had never said it. Better that I never heard it. Better go home.
BAYNARD’S CASTLE, LONDON, SUMMER 1473
I meet Richard in Baynard’s Castle, his family’s London home, and to my relief the court is away from London and the city is peaceful. Elizabeth the queen has gone to Shrewsbury for the birth of her baby, another boy, the second son that Isabel feared, and the doting king is with her. Without doubt they will be joyfully celebrating the birth of another boy to give certainty to their line. It makes no difference to me if she has one boy more or twenty – Richard is three steps from the throne, a fourth step makes little odds, but I cannot help a twinge of irritation at her constant fertility which serves her so well.
They are calling him Richard, in honour of his grandfather and his uncle, my husband. Richard is pleased for them; his love for his brother means he delights in his success. I am only pleased that they are far away in Shrewsbury and I am not summoned with the rest of the ladies to hang over the crib and congratulate her on another strong son. I wish her and her newborn son well, just as I wish any woman in childbed well. I really don’t want to see her in her triumph.
The rest of the lords and courtiers have gone to their lands for the summer, nobody wants to be in London during the hot plague months, so Richard and I will not stay long before we go on the long journey north to Middleham together, to see our baby again.
The day we are due to leave, I go to tell Richard that I will be ready within the hour, and find his presence chamber door is closed. This is the room where Richard hears petitions and applications for his judgement or generosity; the door always stands open as a symbol of his good lordship. It is his throne room, which is always visible so that people can see the youngest son of York about his business of ruling the kingdom. I open the door and go in. The inner door to his privy chamber is closed too. I go to turn the handle, and then I pause at the sound of a familiar voice.
His brother George Duke of Clarence is in there with my husband, talking very quietly and very persuasively. My hand drops from the ring of the handle and I stand still to listen.
‘Since he is not a true son of our father, and since their marriage was undoubtedly brought about by witchcraft . . .’
‘This? Again?’ Richard interrupts his brother scornfully. ‘Again? He has two handsome sons – one newly born this very month – and three healthy daughters against your dead boy and puling girl, and you say his marriage is not blessed by God? Surely, George, even you can see the evidence is against you?’
‘I say they are all bastards. He and Elizabeth Woodville are not married in the sight of God, and their children are all bastards.’
‘And you are the only fool in London who says it.’
‘Many say it. Your wife’s father said it.’
‘For malice. And those who are not malicious are all fools.’
A chair scrapes on the wooden floor. ‘Do you call me a fool?’
‘Lord, yes,’ Richard says scornfully. ‘To your face. A treacherous fool, if you like. A malicious fool if you insist. Do you think that we don’t know that you are meeting with Oxford? With every fool who still carries a grudge though Edward has done everything he can to settle with the embittered placemen who lost their positions? With the Lancastrians who rode against him? With every leftover out-of-place Lancaster follower that you can find? With every disgruntled squire? Sending secret messages to the French? D’you think we don’t know all that you do, and more?’
‘Edward knows?’ George’s voice has lost its bluster as if he has been winded. ‘You said “we know”? What does Edward know? What have you told him?’
‘’Course he knows. Assume he knows everything. Will he do anything? He won’t. Would I? In a moment. Because I have no patience with hidden enmity and I prefer to strike early and quick. But Edward loves you as only a kind brother could, and he has more patience than I can muster. But, brother mine, you bring me no news when you come here to tell me you have been a traitor before and you could be one again. That much I know already. That much we all know.’
‘I didn’t come here for that. Just to say . . .’
Again I hear the scrape of a chair as someone leaps to his feet and then Richard’s raised voice: ‘What does that say? Read it aloud! What does it say?’
Without opening the door to see him, I know that Richard will be pointing to his motto, carved in the massive wooden chimney breast.
‘For God’s sake!’
‘Loyauté me lie,’ Richard quotes. ‘Loyalty binds me. You wouldn’t understand such a thing, but I am sworn heart and soul to my brother Edward the king. I believe in the order of chivalry, I believe in God and the king and that they are one and the same thing and my honour is bound to both. Don’t you even dare to question me. My beliefs are beyond your imagining.’
‘All I am saying,’ now George’s voice is a persuasive whine, ‘all I am saying is that there are questions about the king and questions about the queen and that if we are legitimate and he is not, then perhaps we should divide the kingdom, fairly – as you and I divided the Neville inheritance – and rule jointly. He has all but given you the North, he has allowed you to rule it almost as a principality. Why can’t he give me the Midlands in the same way, and he can keep the south? Prince Edward has Wales. What is this if not fair?’
There is a moment’s silence. I know that Richard will be tempted by the thought of a kingdom of the North, and him as its ruler. I take one tiny step closer to the door. I pray that he will resist temptation, say no to his brother, cleave to the king. Pray God that he does nothing to bring the enmity of the queen down on our heads.
‘It’s to carve up the kingdom that he won in a fair fight,’ Richard says bluntly. ‘He won his kingdom entire, by force of arms in honourable b
attle, with me and even you at his side. He will not divide it. It would be to destroy his son’s inheritance.’
‘I am surprised to see you defend Elizabeth Woodville’s son,’ George says silkily. ‘You of all people, who are supplanted in your brother’s love by their clan. You of all people, who was his best friend and most beloved; but now you come after her, and after her brother the saintly Anthony, and after her commoner sons, his constant companions in every whorehouse in London: Thomas and Richard. But I see that the Woodville boy has a champion in you. You are a loving uncle, as it turns out.’
‘I defend my brother,’ Richard replies. ‘I say nothing about the Rivers family. My brother married the woman of his choice. She was not of my choosing; but I defend my brother. Always.’
‘You can’t be loyal to her,’ George says flatly. ‘You can’t be.’
Again, I hear my young husband hesitate; it is true, he cannot be loyal to her.
‘We’ll talk,’ George says finally. ‘Not now; but later. When the Woodville boy wants to come to his throne. We’ll talk then. When the boy from Grafton, the base-blooded bastard, wants to step up to the throne of England, and take our brother’s crown which we won for him and for our house, not for them – we’ll talk again then. I know you are loyal to Edward – I am too. But only to my brother, to my house and to the blood of kings. Not to that base-born bastard.’
I hear him turn on his heel and walk across the room and I step back to a window bay. As they open the door, I look round with a little start as if I am surprised to find them there. George barely nods at me as he heads towards the door and Richard stands and watches him go.
MIDDLEHAM CASTLE, YORKSHIRE, JULY 1474
Richard keeps his word and although my mother and I live under the same roof I hardly ever see her. She has rooms in the northwest tower, near to the gatehouse for the convenience of the guards, overlooking the thatched roofs and stone gables of the little houses of Middleham, while our rooms are high in the central keep, with views all round like an eyrie. We come and go to London, to York, to Sheriff Hutton, Barnard Castle, accompanied by guards and our household of friends and companions, and she stays in the same rooms, watching the sun rise through the same windows every morning, and set on the opposite side, throwing shadows across her room in the same way every day.
I order that our son Edward shall never be taken along the walkway of the outer wall to see his grandmother. I don’t want her to have anything to do with him. He bears a royal name, he is the grandson my father longed for. He is many steps now from the throne but I am raising him with the education and the courage of a king – as my father would have wanted, as my mother should have done. But she has cursed me and she has cursed my marriage – so I will not give her as much as one glimpse of my beautiful son. She can be dead to him, as she said I was dead to her.
In midsummer she asks to see Richard and me together. The message comes from her chief lady in waiting and Richard glances at me as if asking me if I would like to refuse.
‘We have to see her,’ I say uncomfortably. ‘What if she is ill?’
‘Then she should send for a physician, not for you,’ he says. ‘She knows she can send for a physician, to London if she wishes. She knows I don’t stint on her household.’
I look at Lady Worth. ‘What does she want?’
She shakes her head. ‘She told me only that she wants to see you,’ she says. ‘Both of you.’
‘Bring her to us,’ Richard decides.
We are seated in matching chairs, almost thrones, in the great chamber of Middleham Castle and I don’t rise when my mother comes in the room though she pauses as if she expects me to kneel for her blessing. She looks about her as if to see what changes we have made to her home, and she raises an eyebrow as if she does not think much of our tapestries.
Richard snaps his finger at a manservant. ‘Set a chair for the countess,’ he says.
My mother sits before us and I see the stiffness of her movements. She is getting old; perhaps she is ill. Perhaps she wants to live with Isabel at Warwick Castle, and we can let her go. I wait for her to speak, and know that I am longing to hear her say that she has to go to London for her health and that she will live with Isabel.
‘It’s about the document,’ she says to Richard.
He nods. ‘I thought it would be.’
‘You must have known I would hear about it sooner or later.’
‘I assumed someone would tell you.’
‘What is this?’ I interrupt. I turn to Richard. ‘What document?’
‘I see you keep your wife in ignorance of your doings,’ my mother observes nastily. ‘Did you fear she would try to prevent you from wrongdoing? I am surprised at that. She is no champion of mine. Did you fear that this would be too much for even her to swallow?’
‘No,’ he says coldly. ‘I don’t fear her judgement.’ To me he says briefly: ‘This is the resolution to the problem of your mother’s lands that George and I could finally agree. Edward has confirmed it. We passed it as an act of parliament. It has taken long enough for the lawyers to agree and to formulate it as a law. It is the only solution that satisfied us all: we have declared her legally dead.’
‘Dead!’ I stare at my mother who stares haughtily back at me. ‘How can you call her dead?’
He taps his booted foot on the rushes. ‘It’s a legal term. It solves the problem of her lands. We could not get them any other way. Neither you nor Isabel could inherit them while she was still alive. So we have declared her dead and you and Isabel are her heirs and you inherit. Nobody steals anything from anyone. She is dead: you inherit. As your husbands, the lands are passed on to George and me.’
‘But what about her?’
He gestures at her and he almost laughs aloud. ‘As you see, here she is: living proof of the failure of ill-wishing. It would make a man disbelieve in magic. We called her dead and here she is, hale and hearty, and eating me out of house and home. Someone should preach a sermon on it.’
‘I am sorry if you find me costly,’ my mother says bitingly. ‘But then I remember you have taken all of my fortune to pay for my keep.’
‘Only half your fortune,’ Richard corrects her. ‘Your son-in-law and your other daughter have taken the other half. You need not blame Anne, Isabel has abandoned you too. But we have the cost of housing and guarding you. I don’t ask for gratitude.’
‘I don’t offer any.’
‘Would you prefer to be imprisoned in a nunnery?’ he asks. ‘For I could allow that. I can return you to confinement at Beaulieu if you wish.’
‘I would prefer to live on my own lands in freedom. I would prefer that you had not abused the law to make away with me. What is my life now? What can it be if I am declared dead? Am I in purgatory? Or is this hell?’
He shrugs. ‘You posed an awkward problem. That’s now resolved. I did not want to be seen to be stealing from my mother-in-law and the king’s honour was at stake. You were a defenceless woman in sanctuary and he could not be seen to rob you. We have resolved this very neatly. The act of parliament declares that you are dead and so you have no lands, no house and I suppose no freedom. It is here, or a nunnery, or the grave. You can choose.’
‘I’ll stay here,’ my mother says heavily. ‘But I shall never forgive you for doing this to me, Richard. I cared for you as a boy in this very castle, my husband taught you all that you know about warfare and business. We were your guardians and we were good and kind guardians to you and to your friend Francis Lovell. And this is how you repay me.’
‘Your husband taught me to march fast, kill without remorse, on and off the battlefield and sometimes outside the law, and take whatever I wanted. I am a good pupil to him. If he were in my shoes he would be doing just as I am doing now. In fact his ambition was greater. I have taken only half your lands but he would have taken all of England.’
She cannot disagree. ‘I am weary,’ she says. She gets to her feet. ‘Anne, give me your arm back to my ro
oms.’
‘Don’t think you can suborn her,’ Richard warns her. ‘Anne knows where her loyalties lie. You threw her away into defeat, I rescued her from your neglect and made her a great heiress and a duchess.’
I take my mother’s arm and she leans on me. Unwillingly, I lead her out of the presence chamber, down the stairs and across the great hall, where the servants are pulling out the tables for dinner, to the bridge which leads to the outer walls and her rooms.
She pauses under the archway to the tower. ‘You know he will betray you and you will feel just like me, one day,’ she says suddenly. ‘You will be alone and lonely, you will be in purgatory, wondering if it is hell.’
I shudder and would pull away; but she has my arm in her grip and she is leaning heavily on me. ‘He will not betray me,’ I say. ‘He is my husband and our interests lie together. I love him, we married for love and we love each other still.’
‘Ah, you don’t know then,’ she says with quiet satisfaction. She sighs as if someone has given her a gift of great worth. ‘I thought you did not know.’
Clearly, she will not take another step and for a moment, I stand with her. Suddenly I realise that it is for this moment, alone with me, that she asked for my arm. She did not want a moment alone with her daughter, she was not hoping for a reconciliation. No, she wanted to tell me some awful thing that I don’t know, that I don’t want to know. ‘Come on,’ I say. But she does not move at all.
‘The wording of the law that makes me dead names you as his harlot.’
I am so shocked that I stop quite still and look at her. ‘What are you saying? What madness are you speaking now?’
‘It’s the law of the land,’ she laughs thinly, like a cackling witch. ‘A new law. And you didn’t know.’
‘Know what?’
‘The law that says that I am dead and you inherit goes on to say that if you and your husband divorce, then he keeps the lands.’
‘Divorce?’ I repeat the strange word.