The court is not solely devoted to the hypocrisy of flirting with the king and mourning with me. Richard spends every morning with his councillors, appointing commissioners to raise the shires if there is an invasion from Henry Tudor in Brittany, preparing the fleet to make war with Scotland, harrying French shipping in the narrow seas. He speaks to me of this work and sometimes I can advise him, having spent my childhood at Calais, and since it is my father’s policy of peace with the Scots and armed peace against the French that Richard follows.
He leaves for York in July to establish the Council of the North, the recognition that the North of England is a country in many ways quite different from the southern parts, and Richard is, and will always be, a good lord to them. Before he leaves he comes to my room and sends my ladies away. Elizabeth goes out with a backward smile at him and for once he does not notice. He takes a stool so that he is seated at my feet.
‘What is it?’ I ask without a great deal of interest.
‘I wanted to speak to you about your mother,’ he says.
I am surprised but nothing can catch my interest. I complete the sewing I have in my hands, pierce the needle through the embroidery silks, and put it to one side. ‘Yes?’
‘I think she can be released from our care,’ he says. ‘We won’t go back to Middleham—’
‘No, never,’ I say quickly.
‘And so we could close the place down. She could have her own house, we could pay her an allowance. We don’t need to keep a great castle to house her.’
‘You don’t think she might speak against us?’ Never am I going to refer to the question of our marriage. He can think me now, as I was then, utterly trusting. Now I cannot bring myself to care.
He shrugs. ‘We are King and Queen of England. There are laws against speaking against us. She knows that.’
‘And you don’t fear she will try to take her lands back?’
Again he smiles. ‘I am King of England, she is unlikely to win a case against me. And if she were to get some estates back into her own keeping, I can afford to lose them. You will have them back again when she dies.’
I nod. And anyway, now there is no-one to inherit from me.
‘I just wanted to make sure that you had no objection to her being freed. If you had a preference as to where she should live?’
I shrug. There were four of them at Middleham that winter, Margaret and her brother Teddy, my son Edward and her, my mother, their grandmother. How is it possible that death should have taken her grandson and not taken her? ‘I have lost a son,’ I say. ‘How can I care about a mother?’
He turns his head away, so that I cannot see his grimace of pain. ‘I know,’ he says. ‘The ways of God are mysterious to us.’
He rises to his feet and puts his hand out for me. I get up and stand beside him, smoothing the exquisite silk of my gown.
‘That’s a pretty colour,’ he says, noticing it for the first time. ‘Do you have more of that silk?’
‘I think so,’ I say, surprised. ‘They bought a bolt of it from France, I believe. Do you want a jacket made from it?’
‘It would suit our niece Elizabeth,’ he says lightly.
‘What?’
He smiles at my aghast face. ‘It would suit Elizabeth’s colouring, don’t you think?’
‘You want her to wear a matching gown to mine?’
‘Now and then – if you agree that the colour is good on her too.’
The ridiculous concept stirs me from my lethargy. ‘What are you thinking of? The whole court will think that she is your mistress if you dress her in silks as fine as mine. They will say worse. They will call her your whore. And they will call you a lecher.’
He nods, utterly unshocked by the hard words. ‘Just so.’
‘You want this? You want to shame her, and shame yourself, and dishonour me?’
He takes my hand. ‘Anne, my dearest Anne. We are king and queen now, we have to put aside private preferences. We have to remember we are constantly observed, our acts have meanings that people try to read. We have to put on a show.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I say flatly. ‘What are we showing?’
‘Is the girl not supposed to be betrothed?’
‘Yes, to Henry Tudor, you know as well as I do that he publicly declared himself last Christmas.’
‘And so who is the fool, when she is known to the world as my mistress?’
Slowly I understand. ‘Why, he is.’
‘And so all the people who would support this unknown Welshman, Margaret Beaufort’s Welsh-born boy, because he is betrothed to marry the Princess Elizabeth – the beloved daughter of England’s greatest king – think again. They say, if we rally for Tudor we are not putting the Princess of York on the throne. For the Princess of York is at her uncle’s court, admiring him, supporting him, an ornament to his reign as she was an ornament to her father’s reign.’
‘But some people will say she is little better than a whore. She will be shamed.’
He shrugs. ‘They said the same of her mother. We passed a law that said just that of her mother. And anyway, I would not have thought that would trouble you.’
He is right. Nothing troubles me. Certainly not the humiliation of the Rivers girl.
WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON, WINTER 1484
The threat from Henry Tudor in Brittany absorbs the whole court. He is only a young man, and any king less jealous than a York one might have disregarded his distant claim to the throne of England through his mother’s line. But it is a York king on the throne and Richard knows that Tudor is planning an invasion, seeking support in Brittany from the duke who has protected him for so long, approaching France, the old inveterate enemy of England, for help.
Margaret Beaufort, his mother, my one-time friend, sulks in her country house, gaoled by her husband at Richard’s instruction, and his bride-to-be Elizabeth of York is now all but the first lady of court, dancing every night in the palace which was her childhood home, her wrists bright with bracelets, her hair sparkling under a gold net. She seems to have gifts that arrive every morning as we sit in the chambers that overlook the grey wintry river. Every morning there is a knock at the door and a pageboy bringing something for the girl whom everyone now calls Princess Elizabeth, as if Richard had not passed a law to declare her a bastard and to give her the name of her mother’s first husband. She giggles when she opens it, and she gives a quick guilty glance at me. Always, the gifts come without a note but we all know who is sending her priceless fairings. I remember last year when Richard gave me a present every day for the twelve days of Christmas. But I remember with indifference. I don’t care for jewels now.
The Christmas feast is the pinnacle of her joy. Last year she was a disgraced object of our charity, named as a bastard and claimed as a bride by a traitor, but this year she has bobbed unstoppably upwards, like a cheap light cork in stormy water. We now go for dress fittings together as if we were mother and daughter, as if we were sisters. We stand in the great room of the wardrobe while they pin silks and cloth of gold and furs on us, and I look at the great silvered mirror and see my tired face and fading hair in the same bright colours as the smiling beauty beside me. She is ten years younger than me and it is never more obvious than when we are standing side by side and dressed alike.
Richard openly gives her jewels to match mine, she wears a headdress like a little gold coronet, she wears diamonds in her little ears and sapphires at her throat. The court is gorgeous for Christmas, everyone dressed in their best, and entertainments, sports and games every day. Elizabeth dances through it all, the queen of the revels, the champion of the games, the mistress of the feast. I sit on my great chair, the cloth of estate above me, the crown heavy on my forehead, and fix an indulgent smile on my face as my husband gets up to dance with the most beautiful girl in the palace, takes her hand and leads her away to talk, and then brings her back into the room flushed and tumbled. She glances towards me as if she would apologise – as if sh
e hopes I don’t mind that everyone in the court, and increasingly everyone in England, thinks that they are lovers and I have been set aside. She has the grace to be shame-faced, but I can see she is driven too hard by desire to step back. She cannot say no to him, she cannot deny herself. Perhaps she is in love.
I dance too. When it is a slow and stately dance I let Richard lead me out and the dancers follow us round the floor in the smooth paces. Richard keeps my steps in time; I can hardly be troubled with the beat of the music. It was only last Christmas when the court was in its pomp – a new king come to the throne, new wealth to disperse, new treasures to buy, new gowns to show – and then my son took a little fever and died of nothing more than a little fever, and I was not by his bed. I was not in the castle. I was celebrating our success, hunting in the forests of Nottingham. I cannot think now what there was to celebrate.
Christmas Day we keep as a holy day, attending church several times. Elizabeth is prettily devout, a scarf of green gauze over her fair hair, her eyes downcast. Richard walks back from chapel with me, my hand in his.
‘You are tired,’ he says.
I am tired of life itself. ‘No,’ I say. ‘I am looking forward to the rest of the days of Christmas.’
‘There are some unpleasant rumours. I don’t want you to listen to them, there is nothing in them.’
I pause and the court halts behind us. ‘Leave us,’ I say over my shoulder to them all. They melt away, Elizabeth glancing at me as if she thinks she might disobey. Richard shakes his head at her and she drops a little curtsey in my direction, and goes.
‘What rumours?’
‘I said, I don’t want you to listen to them.’
‘Then I had better hear them from you so I don’t listen to anyone else.’
He shrugs. ‘There are those who say that I am planning to put you aside and marry Princess Elizabeth.’
‘Your courtship charade has succeeded then,’ I remark. ‘Was it a courtship? Or was it a charade?’
‘Both,’ he says grimly. ‘I had to discredit the betrothal between her and Tudor. He is certain to invade this spring. I had to cut away the York affinity from him.’
‘You take care you don’t cut away the Neville affinity,’ I observe shrewdly. ‘I am the kingmaker’s daughter. There are many in the North who follow you only for love of me. Even now my name counts for more than anything there. They won’t be loyal to you if they think you slight me.’
He kisses my hand. ‘I don’t forget it. I won’t forget it. And I would never slight you. You are my heart. Even if you are a broken heart.’
‘Is that the worst of it?’
He hesitates. ‘There is talk of poison.’
At the mention of Elizabeth Woodville’s weapon I freeze where I stand. ‘Who is speaking of poison?’
‘Some gossip from the kitchen. A dog died after a dish was spilled and he lapped it up. You know how much is made from little at court.’
‘Whose was the dish?’
‘Yours.’
I say nothing. I feel nothing. Not even surprise. For years Elizabeth Woodville has been my enemy and even now, with her released and living at peace in Wiltshire, I can feel her grey gaze on the nape of my neck. She will see me still as the daughter of the man who killed her beloved father and brother. Now she sees me also as the woman who stands in the way of her daughter. If I were dead then Richard would get a dispensation from the Pope and marry his niece Elizabeth. The House of York would be reunited, the Woodville woman would be dowager queen once more and grandmother to the next King of England.
‘She never stops,’ I say quietly to myself.
‘Who?’ Richard seems taken aback.
‘Elizabeth Woodville. I take it that it is she who is suspected of trying to poison me?’
He laughs out loud, his former impulsive crack of laughter that I have not heard for so long. He takes my hand and kisses my fingers. ‘No, they don’t suspect her,’ he says. ‘But it doesn’t matter. I will guard you. I shall make sure that you are safe. But you must rest, my dear. Everyone says you look tired.’
‘I am well enough,’ I say grimly, and to myself I promise: ‘I am well enough to keep her daughter from my throne.’
WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON, JANUARY 1485
It is the twelfth night, the feast of the epiphany, the last day of the long feast of Christmas, which this year seemed to last forever. I dress with particular care in my red and gold gown, and Elizabeth, matching in every detail in her red and gold gown, follows me into the throne room and stands beside my chair, as if to show the world the contrast between the old queen and the young mistress. There is a masquing, telling of the story of the Christmas feast and the epiphany, there is music and dancing. Richard and Elizabeth dance together, so practised now that their steps match. She has all the grace of her mother; nobody can keep their eyes off her. I see Richard’s warmth towards her and I wonder again, what is courting and what is charade?
Twelfth night, of all the nights of the year, is one where shapes shift and identities flicker. Once I was the kingmaker’s daughter, raised in the knowledge that I would be one of the great ladies of the kingdom. Now I am queen. This should satisfy my father and satisfy me, but when I think of the price we have paid, I think that we have been cheated by fate itself. I smile down the room so that everyone can know I am happy with my husband dancing hand-in-hand with his niece, his eyes on her blushing face. I have to show everyone that I am well and that the insidious drip of Elizabeth Woodville’s poison in my food, in my wine, perhaps even in the perfume that scents my gloves, is not slowly killing me.
The dance ends and Richard comes back to sit beside me. Elizabeth goes to chatter with her sisters. Richard and I are wearing our crowns at this final feast of the season, to show everyone that we are King and Queen of England, to send the message out to the most distant shires that we are in our pomp. A door opens beside us and a messenger comes in and hands Richard a single sheet of paper. He reads it briefly and nods to me as if a gamble he has made has been confirmed.
‘What is it?’
He speaks very quietly. ‘News of Tudor. No Christmas announcement of his betrothal this year. I have won this round. He has lost the York princess and he has lost the support of the Rivers affinity.’ He smiles at me. ‘He knows he cannot claim her as his wife, everyone believes she is in my keeping, my whore. I have stolen her and her followers from him.’
I look down the long room to where Elizabeth is practising her steps with her sisters, impatiently waiting for the music to start again. A circle of young men stand around, hoping that she will dance with them.
‘You have ruined her if she is known throughout the country as broken meats, the king’s hackney.’
He shrugs. ‘There is a price to pay if you venture near the throne. She knows that. Her mother, of all people, knows that. But there is more—’
‘What more?’
‘I have the date for the Tudor invasion. He is coming this year.’
‘You know this? When is he coming?’
‘This very summer.’
‘How do you know?’ I whisper.
Richard smiles. ‘I have a spy at his ramshackle court.’
‘Who?’
‘Elizabeth Woodville’s oldest son, Thomas Grey. He is in my keeping too. She is proving a very good friend to me.’
WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON, MARCH 1485
Richard prepares for invasion. I prepare for death. Elizabeth prepares for a wedding and a coronation, though there is nothing in her quiet respectful service that would reveal this to anyone but me. My senses are extreme, on the alert. Only I see the glow in her cheek when she comes back from walking in the garden, the way she pats her hair as if someone has pulled her towards him and knocked her headdress askew, only I see that the ribbons of her cloak are untied as if she has opened them to allow him to put his hands on her warm waist and pull her close.
I have someone to taste my wine, I have someone to test my
food, but still I weaken steadily though the days grow lighter and the sun is warmer and outside my window a blackbird is building a nest in the apple tree and sings for joy every dawn. I cannot sleep, not at night nor in the day. I think of my girlhood when Richard came and saved me from poverty and humiliation, I think of my childhood when Isabel and I were little girls and played at being queens. It is incredible to me that I am twenty-eight years old, and there is no Isabel, and I no longer have any desire to be queen.
I watch Princess Elizabeth with a sort of shrewd sympathy. She thinks I am dying – I give her the credit to believe that it is not her hand that is sprinkling poison on my pillow – but she thinks I am dying of some wasting sickness and that when I have wasted quite away then Richard will make her queen for love, and every day will be a feast day, and every day she will have a new gown, and every day will be a celebration of her return to the palaces and castles of her childhood as her mother’s heir: the next Queen of England.
She thinks that he does not love me, she probably thinks that he never loved me. She thinks that she is the first woman whom he has ever loved and that now he will love her forever and she will dance through her days, always adored, always beautiful, a queen of hearts just as her mother was.