There is a roar from our cannons on their mountings before the Tower, and the windows light up briefly with the blaze of the firing. Elizabeth shrinks back against me. “That is our cannon, shooting the bad men’s ships,” I say cheerfully. “It is a cousin of Warwick, Thomas Neville, who is too stupid to know that the war is over and that we have won.”
“What does he want?” Elizabeth asks.
“He wants to start it all again,” I say bitterly. “But your uncle Anthony is ready for him, and he has the London-trained bands ready on the walls of London, and all the apprentice boys—they like a fight—are ready to defend the city. And then your father will come home.”
She looks at me with her huge gray eyes. She always thinks more than she says, my little Elizabeth. She has been at war since she was a baby; she knows even now that she is a piece on the chessboard of England. She knows that she is to be traded, she knows that she has a value, she knows that she has been in danger all her life. “And will it end then?” she asks me.
“Yes,” I promise her doubtful little face. “It will end then.”
Three days we are under siege, three days of shelling and then the assaults from the men of Kent and the Neville ships with Anthony and our kinsman, Henry Bourchier, the Earl of Essex, organizing the defense. Each day more of my family and kin stream into the Tower, my sisters and their husbands, Anthony’s wife, my former ladies-in-waiting, all thinking it the safest place in a city under siege, until Anthony decrees we have enough officers and enough men for a counterattack.
“How far away is Edward?” I ask nervously.
“Last I heard, he was four days away,” he says. “Too far. We don’t dare wait for him to come. And I think we can beat them with the forces I have.”
“What if you lose?” I ask nervously.
He laughs. “Then, Sister Queen, you must be queen militant and command the defense of the Tower yourself. You can hold out for days. What we have to do is drive them back now, before they start to come any closer. If they tighten the siege on the Tower or increase the cannon fire, or if, God forbid, they get in somehow, you could die before Edward gets home.”
I nod. “Go on then,” I say grimly. “Attack them.”
He bows. “Spoken like a true Yorkist,” he says. “All the York family are a bloodthirsty lot, born and raised on the battlefield. Let us hope that when we finally have peace, they don’t kill each other out of sheer habit.”
“Let’s get peace first before we worry about the York brothers spoiling it,” I say.
At dawn Anthony is ready. The London-trained bands are well armed and well drilled. This is a city that has been at war for sixteen years, and every apprentice has a weapon and knows how to use it. The men of Kent, under the command of the Neville forces, are encamped all around the Tower and the city walls but they are sleeping when the postern gate to the Tower opens and Anthony and his men quietly file out. I hold the gate for them; Henry Bourchier is the last to go. “Your Grace, my cousin, bolt it behind us and get you into safety,” he says to me.
“No, I’ll wait here,” I say. “If it goes wrong for you, I shall be here to let my brother in and you all with him.”
He smiles at that. “Well, I hope we will come back with a victory,” he says.
“God speed,” I reply.
I should close and bolt the gate behind them, but I do not. I stand in the gateway to watch. I think of myself as a heroine in a story, the beautiful queen who sends out her knights to battle and then watches over them like an angel.
At first, it looks like that. My brother, bareheaded, in his beautifully engraved breastplate, goes quietly towards the camp, his broadsword in his hand, followed by his men, our loyal friends and those of our affinity. In the moonlight they look like cavaliers on a quest, the river gleaming behind them, the night sky dark above them. The rebels are camped in the field by the river; more of them are quartered in the narrow dirty streets around. They are poor men; there are a few with tents and shelters, but most are sleeping on the ground beside campfires. The streets outside the city walls are full of alehouses and whorehouses, and half the men are drunk. Anthony’s force forms into three, and then at the whispered word everything changes. They put their helmets on their heads, they drop their visors over their kindly eyes, they draw their swords, they release the heavy ball of their maces, they turn from mortals into men of metal.
I somehow sense the change that comes over them as I stand at the gate watching, and even though I have sent them out to battle and it is me they are defending, I have a feeling that something bad and bloody is about to happen. “No,” I whisper, as if I would stop them as they start to run forward, their swords drawn, their axes swinging.
Sleeping men stumble up with a cry of fright and get a blade in the heart or an axe through the head. There is no warning: they come out of dreams of victory, or dreams of home, into a cold blade and an agonizing death. The dozing sentries jump awake and scream the alarm, silenced by a dagger through the throat. They flail about. One man falls into the flames of the fire and screams in agony, but nobody stops to help him. Our men kick the campfire embers and some of the tents and the blankets catch fire and the horses rear up and neigh in fear as their fodder blazes up before them. At once the whole camp is awake and running in panic as Anthony’s men go through them like silent killers, stabbing men on the ground as they roll over and try to wake, pushing men down as they rise up, slitting an unarmed man’s belly, clubbing a man as he reaches for his sword. The army from Kent rolls out of sleep and starts to run. Those who are not brought down grab what they can and dash away. They rouse the men in the streets beside the Tower, and some come running towards the field. Anthony’s men turn on them with a roar and charge at them, their swords already red with blood, and the rebels, country boys most of them, turn and run.
Anthony’s men give chase but he calls them back: he won’t leave the Tower undefended. A group he sends down to the quayside to capture the Neville ships; the rest head back to the Tower, their voices loud and excited in the coldness of the morning. They shout at each other of a man stabbed in his sleep, of a woman rolling over to be beheaded, of a horse breaking its own neck, rearing from the fire.
I open the sally-port gate for them. I don’t want to greet them, I don’t want to see any more, I don’t want to hear any more. I go up to my rooms, gather my mother, my girls, and Baby, and bolt our bedroom door in silence, as if I fear my own army. I have heard men tell of many battles in this cousins’ war, and they always spoke of heroism, of the courage of men, of the power of their comradeship, of the fierce anger of battle, and of the brotherhood of survival. I have heard ballads about great battles, and poems about the beauty of a charge and the grace of the leader. But I did not know that war was nothing more than butchery, as savage and unskilled as sticking a pig in the throat and leaving it to bleed to make the meat tender. I did not know that the style and nobility of the jousting arena had nothing to do with this thrust and stab. Just like killing a screaming piglet for bacon after chasing it round the sty. And I did not know that war thrilled men so: they come home like laughing schoolboys filled with excitement after a prank; but they have blood on their hands and a smear of something on their cloaks and the smell of smoke in their hair and a terrible ugly excitement in their faces.
I understand now why they break into convents, force women against their will, defy sanctuary to finish the killing chase. They arouse in themselves a wild vicious hunger more like animals than men. I did not know that war was like this. I feel I have been a fool not to know, since I was raised in a kingdom at war and am the daughter of a man captured in battle, the widow of a knight, the wife of a merciless soldier. But I know now.
MAY 21, 1471
Edward rides in at the head of his men, looking like a king coming home in glory, no trace of battle in his bearing, on his horse, or on his gleaming harness. Richard is one side of him, George the other, my sons, thrilled, behind them. The York boys are co
me to their own again, the three of them as one, and London goes mad with joy to see them. Three dukes, six earls, and sixteen barons ride in with them, all of them heartfelt Yorkists and sworn to be faithful. Who would have thought that we had so many friends? Not me, when I was in a sanctuary that was more like a prison, bearing the child that is heir to this glory in darkness and fear and all but alone.
Behind their train comes Margaret of Anjou, white-faced and grim, seated on a litter drawn by mules. They don’t exactly bind her hands and feet and put a silver chain around her throat but I think everyone understands well enough that this woman is defeated and will not rise from her defeat. I take Elizabeth with me when I greet Edward at the gate of the Tower because I want my little daughter to see this woman who has been a terror to her for all her five years, to see her defeated and to know that we are all safe from the one she calls the bad queen.
Edward greets me formally before the cheering crowd but whispers in my ear, “I can’t wait to get you alone.”
But he has to wait. He has knighted half the city of London in thanks for their fidelity, and there is a banquet to celebrate their rise to greatness. In truth, we all have much to be thankful for. Edward has fought for his crown again, and won again, and I am still the wife of a king who has never been beaten in battle. I put my mouth to his ear and whisper back, “I can’t wait either, husband.”
We go to bed late, in his chambers, and half the guests are drunk and the others beside themselves with happiness to find themselves at a York court again. Edward pulls me down beside him and takes me as if we were newly married in the little hunting lodge by the river, and I hold him again, as the man who saved me from poverty and the man who saved England from constant warfare, and I am glad that he calls me “Wife, my darling wife.”
He says against my hair. “You held me when I was afraid, my love. I thank you for that. It’s the first time I have had to go out knowing that I might lose. It made me sick with fear.”
“I saw a battle. Not even a battle, a massacre,” I say, my forehead against his chest. “It’s a terrible thing, Edward. I didn’t know.”
He lies back, his face grim. “It is a terrible thing,” he says. “And there is no one who loves peace more than a soldier. I will bring this country to peace and to loyalty to us. I swear it. Whatever I have to do to bring it about. We have to stop these endless battles. We have to bring this war to an end.”
“It’s vile,” I say. “There is no honor in it at all.”
“It has to end,” he says. “I have to end it.”
We are both silent, and I expect him to sleep, but instead he lies thoughtful, his arms folded behind his head, staring at the golden tester over the bed, and when I say, “What is it, Edward? Is something troubling you?”
He says slowly, “No, but there is something I have to do before I can sleep at peace tonight.”
“Shall I come with you?”
“No, love, this is men’s work.”
“What is it?”
“Nothing. Nothing for you to worry about. Nothing. Go to sleep. I will come back to you later.”
I am alarmed now. I sit up in bed. “What is it, Edward? You look—I don’t know—what is the matter? Are you ill?”
He gets out of bed with sudden decision and pulls on his clothes. “Peace, beloved. I have to go and do something, and when it is done I shall be able to rest. I shall be back within the hour. Go to sleep and I will wake you and have you again.”
I laugh at that, and lie back, but when he is dressed and gone quietly from the room, I slip from the bed and pull on my nightgown. On my bare feet, making no noise, I tiptoe through the privy chamber and out into the presence chamber. The guards are silent at the door, and I nod at them without a word, and they lift their halberds and let me pass. I pause at the head of the stairs and look down. The stair rails curl round and round inside the well of the building, and I can see Edward’s hand going down and down to the floor below us, where the old king has his rooms. I see Richard’s dark head far below me, at the old king’s doorway, as if he is waiting to enter; and I hear George’s voice floating up the stairwell. “We thought you had changed your mind!”
“No. It has to be done.”
I know then what they are about, the three golden brothers of York who won their first battle under three suns in the sky, who are so blessed by God that they never lose. But I do not call out to stop them. I do not run downstairs and catch Edward’s arm and swear that he shall not do this thing. I know that he is of two minds; but I do not throw my opinion on the side of compassion, of living with an enemy, of trusting to God for our safety. I do not think: if they do this, what might someone do to us? I see the key in Edward’s hand, I hear the turning of the lock, I hear the door open to the king’s rooms, and I let the three of them go in, without a word from me.
Henry, madman or saint, is a consecrated king: his body is sacred. He is in the heart of his own kingdom, his own city, his own tower: he must be safe here. He is guarded by good men. He is a prisoner of honor to the House of York. He should be as secure as if he were in his own court: he trusts to us for his safekeeping.
He is one frail man to three young warriors. How can they not be merciful? He is their cousin, their kinsman, and they all three once swore to love and be faithful to him. He is sleeping like a child when the three come into the room. What will happen to us all if they can bring themselves to murder a man as innocent and helpless as a sleeping boy?
I know this is why I have always hated the Tower. I know this is why the tall dark palace on the edge of the Thames has always filled me with foreboding. This death has been on my conscience before we even did it. How heavily it will sit with me from now on only God and my conscience knows. And what price will I have to pay for my part in it, for my silent listening, without a word of protest?
I don’t go back to Edward’s bed. I don’t want to be in his bed when he comes back to me with the smell of death on his hands. I don’t want to be here, in the Tower at all. I don’t want my son to sleep here, in the Tower of London, supposedly the safest place in England, where armed men can walk into the room of an innocent and hold a pillow over his face. I go to my own rooms and I stir up the fire and I sit beside the warmth all night long, and I know without doubt that the House of York has taken a step on a road that will lead us to hell.
SUMMER 1471
I am seated with my mother on a raised bed of camomile, the warm scent of the herb all around us, in the garden of the royal manor of Wimbledon, one of my dower houses, given to me as queen, and still one of my favorite country houses. I am picking out colors for her embroidery. The children are down at the river, feeding ducks with their nursemaid. I can hear their high voices in the distance, calling the ducks by the names they have given them, and scolding them when they don’t respond. Now and then I can hear the distinctive squeak of joy from my son. Every time I hear his voice my heart lifts that I have a boy, and a prince, and that he is a happy baby; and my mother, thinking the same, gives a little nod of satisfaction.
The country is so settled and peaceful, one would think there had never been a rival king and armies marching at double time to face each other. The country has welcomed the return of my husband; we have all rushed towards peace. More than anything else, we all want to get on with our lives under a fair rule, and forget the loss and pain of the last sixteen years. Oh, there are a few who hold out: Margaret Beaufort’s son, now the most unlikely heir to the Lancaster line, is holed up in Pembroke Castle in Wales with his uncle, Jasper Tudor, but they cannot last for long. The world has changed, and they will have to sue for peace. Margaret Beaufort’s own husband, Henry Stafford, is a Yorkist now and fought on our side at Barnet. Perhaps only she, stubborn as a martyr, and her silly son are the last Lancastrians left in the world.
I have a dozen shades of green laid out on my white-gowned knee, and my mother is threading her needle, holding it up to the sky to see better, bringing it closer to her eye
s and then farther away again. I think it is the first time in my life I have ever seen a trace of weakness in her. “Can’t you see to thread your needle?” I ask her, half amused.
And she turns and smiles at me and says, quite easily, “My eyes are not the only things that are failing me, and my thread is not the only thing that is blurred. I shan’t see sixty, my child. You should prepare yourself.”
It is as if the day has suddenly gone cold and dark. “Shan’t see sixty!” I exclaim. “Why ever not? Are you ill? You said nothing! Shall you see the physician? We must go back to London?”
She shakes her head and sighs. “No, there is nothing for a physician to see, and thank God, nothing that some fool with a knife would think he could cut out. It is my heart, Elizabeth. I can hear it. It is beating wrongly—I can hear it skip a beat, and then go slowly. It will not beat strongly again, I don’t think. I don’t expect to see many more summers.”
I am so aghast I don’t even feel sorrow. “But what shall I do?” I demand, my hand on my belly, where another new life is beginning. “Mother, what shall I do? You can’t think of it! How shall I manage?”
“You can’t say I haven’t taught you everything,” she says with a smile. “Everything I know and everything I believe I have taught you. And some of it may even be true. And I am sure that you are safe on your throne at last. Edward has England in his hand, he has a son to come after him, and you have another baby on the way.” She puts her head on one side as if she is listening to some distant whisper. “I can’t tell. I don’t think this is your second boy; but I know you will have another boy, Elizabeth, I am sure of that. And what a boy he will be! I am sure of that too.”