The Kingmaker's Daughter (19 page)

I am trembling at her sudden rage.

‘You can decide,’ her son says indifferently, as if I am not his wife, bound to be with him. ‘We can send a couple of men to ride with you. Later, we can get the marriage
annulled. What do you want to do?’

I think of my father, dying to put me on the throne, fighting against an army that came out of the mist. I think of his burning constant ambition that a Neville girl should take the throne of
England, that we should make a king. He did that for me. He died for me. I can do this for him. ‘I’ll come,’ I say. ‘I’ll come with you.’

We set off on a punishing march, men flocking to our standards every time we halt. The queen is beloved in the western counties and her friends and allies have long promised
that she would land on their shores and lead an army against the House of York. We go north and west. The city of Bristol supports us with money and cannon, and the citizens pile out into the
narrow streets with their caps filled with gold coins for us. Behind us, Edward has to recruit soldiers on the run, in a country that has no love for the House of York. We hear that he finds it
hard going and is lacking the support he needs; his army is tired, and every day the gap between our forces widens as we get away from him. Our spies tell us that he is falling behind, delayed by
the need to get more men, incapable of catching us. Margaret laughs and jumps down from the saddle at the end of the day like a girl. I climb down wearily, aching all over, my knees and my buttocks
red and sore.

We rest for a few hours only. I fall asleep lying on the ground wrapped in my riding cloak and I dream that my father comes, stepping carefully around the sleeping guard, and tells me that I can
come home to Calais, that the bad queen and the sleeping king are defeated and I can be safe at home once more behind the high castle walls, guarded by the seas. I wake smiling and look around for
him. It is raining slightly and I am chilled, and my gown is damp. I have to get up and mount on a wet saddle on a wet horse and go on with nothing to eat. We dare not wait and light fires for
breakfast.

We are marching up the broad valley of the Severn, and as the sun comes up it is hot and weary; there are no trees and no shade. The wide green fields seem to stretch forever, and there are no
roads, just tracks of dried mud, and so the riders stir up a cloud of dust which chokes everyone who comes behind them. The horses droop their heads and stumble through the dried ruts and stones.
When we come to a stream the men fling themselves down on their bellies and try to drink before the horses go in and foul the river. When my guard brings me a cup of water it tastes dirty, and in
the afternoon the flies come out and swarm around my face and eyes. My horse shakes his head all the time against the biting of the insects and I brush my face and rub my nose, and feel myself
flushed and sweaty and so weary that I wish I could fall out, like some of the men do, and fling themselves on the side of the road and let the march go past them, beyond caring.

‘We’ll cross the river at Gloucester,’ the queen says. ‘Then Edward will drop back – he won’t dare to attack us in Wales. Once we are over the river we are
safe.’ She gives a little excited laugh. ‘Once we are over the river we are halfway to victory. Jasper Tudor will raise men for me, we will come into England like a broadsword to the
throat.’ She is jubilant, beaming at me. ‘This is what it is to be a queen militant,’ she tells me. ‘Remember this march. You have to fight for what you own by right,
sometimes. You have to be ready to fight, to do anything.’

‘I am so tired,’ I say.

She laughs. ‘Remember how it feels. If we win you will never have to march again. Let the tiredness, let the pain come into your soul. Swear to yourself you will never fight for your
throne again. You will win once and forever.’

We come to the city of Gloucester from the south and as we approach we can see the great gates of the city swing to shut in our faces. I remember my father telling me that London once locked its
gates to this queen and begged her to take her wild army of northern men away. This mayor comes out on the wall of Southgate himself and calls down his apologies, but he has an order from Edward
– he calls him King Edward – and he will not disobey. Even while marching, even while recruiting, even while chasing after us, thirsty in the hot sun, Edward thought to send scouts
ahead and round us to get to Gloucester and hold them to their loyalty to him. Perversely, I want to smile. It was my father who taught Edward to think ahead, to see an army in the field like a
game of chess. My father will have told Edward not just to secure your own river crossing, but block your enemy.

The duke goes forwards to argue but the city’s cannon look down on him with the mayor who just repeats that he is commanded by the king. The bridge across the great River Severn is the
western gate out of the city; there is no other way to get to it but through the city. There is no way across the Severn but their bridge. We have to get inside the city walls to get to the bridge.
The duke offers money, favour, the gratitude of the woman who was once queen and will be again. We can see the mayor shake his head. The city commands the crossing of the river, and if they
won’t let us in we cannot get across the River Severn here. Clearly, they won’t let us in. The queen bites her lip. ‘We’ll go on,’ is all she says, and we ride on.

I start to count the paces of my horse. I lean forwards in the saddle trying to ease the pain in my thighs and buttocks. I wrap my hands in the horse’s mane and grit my teeth. Before me, I
see the queen riding straight-backed, indomitable. I fall into a daze of fatigue as it gets darker and then, as the stars are coming out, and the horse’s pace is slower and slower, I hear her
say: ‘Tewkesbury. We’ll cross the river here. There’s a ford.’

The horse halts, and I stretch out of the saddle to lean along its neck. I am so weary I cannot care where we are. I hear a scout come and speak urgently to her and to the Duke of Somerset and
to the prince. He says that Edward is behind, close behind, closer than a mortal man could have marched. He has the speed of the devil and he is on our heels.

I raise my head. ‘How can he have gone so fast?’ I ask. Nobody answers me.

We cannot rest, there can be no time for rest. But we cannot cross the river in the dark – you have to go from sandbank to sandbank, carefully staying in the shallows. We can’t go
into the cold deep water without lights. So we cannot escape him. He has caught us on the wrong side of the river and we will have to fight him here, as soon as it is light tomorrow. We must
remember that he can turn his army in a moment, prepare them in darkness, conquer in mist, in snow. He has a wife who can whistle up a wind for him, who can breathe out a mist, whose icy hatred can
make snow. We have to get into battle lines now, we must prepare for battle at dawn. No matter how tired and thirsty and hungry, the men must make ready to fight. The duke rides off and starts to
order where the troops are to be deployed. Most of them are so weary that they drop down their packs and sleep where they are ordered to make their stand, in the shelter of the ruins of the old
castle.

‘This way,’ the queen says and a scout takes her horse and leads us downhill, a little way out of the town, to a small nunnery where we can sleep for the night, and we ride into the
stable yard and someone at last helps me from my horse and when my legs buckle beneath me, the almoner guides me into the guest house to the oblivion of a little truckle bed made up with coarse
clean sheets.

TEWKESBURY, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, 4 MAY 1471

As soon as it grows light reports come to us almost hourly, but it is hard to tell what is happening, just a few miles away. The queen paces up and down the little hall of the
priory where we have taken up our quarters. They say that Edward’s army is fighting uphill, against our force that is well-positioned behind the half-ruined walls of the old Tewkesbury
castle. Then they come and say that the York armies are advancing, Richard Duke of Gloucester on one wing, Edward in the centre fighting side by side with his brother George, and his great friend
William Hastings bringing up the rear, protecting them from ambush.

I wonder if Isabel has come with her husband and is nearby, waiting for news as I am waiting for news. She will be wondering about me; I can almost sense her nearby, anxious as I am. I look out
of the window of the priory, almost as if I expect to see her, riding up the road to me. It seems impossible that we should be close to each other and not together. The queen looks coldly at me
when we hear that George is at the very centre of the army that is coming against us. ‘Traitor,’ she says quietly. I don’t reply. It is meaningless to me that my sister is now a
traitor’s wife, she is my enemy, her husband is trying to kill my husband, she has abandoned the cause that my father gave his life for. None of this makes any sense to me. I cannot believe
that my father is dead, I cannot believe that my mother has abandoned me, I cannot believe that my sister is married to a traitor to our cause, has become a traitor herself. Most of all I cannot
believe that I am alone without Izzy, though she is just a few miles away.

Then the messengers fail to arrive, and nobody comes to tell us what is happening. We go out to the little physic garden of the priory and we can hear the terrible noise of the cannon, which
sounds just like summer-day thunder; but there is no way of knowing whether it is our gunners, getting the white rose in their sights, mowing them down, or whether Edward has managed to bring his
own artillery, even on a forced march, even at that speed, and they are shooting uphill at us.

‘The duke is an experienced soldier,’ the queen says. ‘He will know what to do.’

Neither of us remark that my father was far more experienced, and won almost all his battles, but his pupil Edward defeated him. Suddenly we hear the rattle of a galloping horse and a rider with
the Beaufort colours approaches the stable yard. We run to the open gate. He does not even dismount, he does not even enter the yard, but his horse wheels and rears on the road, sweat-stained and
labouring for breath. ‘My lord said I was to tell you, if ever I thought the battle lost. So I have come. You should get away.’

Margaret runs forwards and would grab his reins but he puts his whip-hand down to prevent her from touching him. ‘I won’t stay. I promised him I would warn you and this I have done.
I’m off.’

‘The duke?’

‘Run away!’

The shock makes her shrill. ‘The Duke of Somerset!’

‘That’s him. Run like a deer.’

‘Where is Edward?’

‘Coming!’ is all he shouts, and he wheels his horse and gallops off down the road, the sparks flying from the horseshoes.

‘We must go,’ Margaret says flatly.

I am overwhelmed by the sudden defeat. ‘Are you sure? Shouldn’t we wait for Prince Edward? What if that man was mistaken?’

‘Oh yes,’ she says bitterly. ‘I am sure. This is not the first time I have run from a battlefield and perhaps it will not be the last. Get them to bring our horses. I will get
my things.’

She dashes into the house and I run to the stable and shake the old groom and tell him to bring my horse and the queen’s horse at once.

‘What’s the matter?’ His gummy old smile breaks his wrinkled face into a thousand cracks. ‘Battle too hot for you, little lady? Want to get away now? I thought you were
waiting to ride out in triumph?’

‘Get the horses out,’ is all I say.

I hammer on the door of the hayloft for the two men who are supposed to guard us and order them to get ready to leave at once. I run inside to fetch my cloak and my riding gloves. I hop on the
wooden floor as I cram my feet into my riding boots. Then I scramble out into the yard, one glove on, one in my hand, but as I get to the yard and shout for them to bring my horse to the mounting
block, there is a thunder of hooves outside and the gate to the yard is suddenly filled with fifty horses and I can see, amid them all, the black curly head of Richard Duke of Gloucester, my
childhood friend, the ward of my father, and the brother of Edward of York. Beside him, I recognise at once, is Robert Brackenbury, his childhood friend, still faithful. Our two men have handed
over their pikes, they are stripping off their jackets as if they are glad to be rid of the insignia of the red rose and my husband, Prince Edward’s, badge of the swan.