The Kingmaker's Daughter (32 page)

Slowly, I fold the letter into smaller and smaller portions, and then I walk to the great hall where the fire is always burning and drop the wadded paper in the back of the fire and watch it
smoulder and burn. Richard, coming by with his deerhound at his heels, pauses at my solemn face, and looks at the little flame in the grate.

‘What was this?’

‘Nothing,’ I say sadly. ‘It’s nothing to me any more.’

MIDDLEHAM CASTLE, YORKSHIRE, JUNE 1473

It is the time of day that I love the best, the early evening before dinner, and Richard and I are walking around the walls which run around this great castle, a long square
walk which takes us to all points of the compass and begins and ends at the prince’s tower where my darling little Edward has his nursery. To our right is the deep moat. As I look down I can
see them pulling a net from the moat gleaming with wriggling silver fish and I nudge Richard and say, ‘Carp for dinner tonight.’

Beyond the moat is the jumble of stone and slate buildings of the little town of Middleham and all around the town the rich pasture that runs up to the moorland. I can see two milkmaids with
their yoke and pails over their broad shoulders, carrying their three-legged stools, going out to milk the cows in the fields, and the cows raising their heads from the grass when they hear the
call ‘bonnie coo! bonnie coo!’ and walking slowly towards them. Beyond the fields the lower slopes of the hills are dark green with bracken and beyond that, higher and higher, is the
misty amethyst tinge of flowering heather. This has been my home, and my family’s home, forever. Most of the boys in the cottages are named Richard after my father, and his father before him.
Most of the girls are called Anne or Isabel after my sister and me. Almost everyone has sworn obedience to me or to the new Richard here – my husband. As we turn the corner on the walkway of
the castle and go away from the town I see an early barn owl, white as a cloud, floating silent as a falling leaf along the bushy line of the hedge. The sun is sinking down into a layer of rose and
gold clouds, my hand is tucked in Richard’s arm, and I lean my head against his shoulder.

‘Are you happy?’ I ask.

He smiles at the question, which is not one he would ever pose. ‘I am glad to be here.’

‘You mean – not at court?’

I am hoping that he will say something about loving my company and loving being with me and the baby in this, our most beautiful home. We are still newly wed, we are still young, I still have a
sense of playing the part of being the lord of the manor and his lady, as if I am not yet old enough or grand enough to take my mother’s place. For Richard it is different. This life has been
hard-won; he shoulders the responsibilities of being lord of the North of England. For me, being his wife, living here, in my family home, is a girl’s dream. Often I cannot believe that such
a dream has come true.

But Richard merely says: ‘Court is like a general melee in a jousting tournament these days. The Rivers keep gaining, and George and the other lords keep fighting back. It is a constant
unspoken struggle. Not a yard of land nor a coin in my pocket is safe. There is always some kinsman to the queen who thinks they should have it.’

‘The king . . .’

‘Edward agrees with the last person he spoke to. He laughs and promises anyone anything. He spends his days riding and dancing and gambling and his nights carousing on the streets of
London with William Hastings, and even with his stepsons – and I swear that they are not his true companions but are there only to serve their mother. They go along with him, their
stepfather, to be her eyes and ears, they lead him into all sorts of bawdy houses and stews, and then I swear they report back to her and tell her everything. He has no friends, only spies and
toadies.’

‘That’s wrong,’ I say with the stern morality of the young.

‘It’s very wrong,’ Richard confirms. ‘A king should set an example to his people. Edward is beloved and the people of London like to see him; but when he is drunk in the
streets and chasing women—’ He breaks off. ‘Anyway, these are not matters for your ears.’

I match my steps to his, and I don’t remind him that I spent much of my girlhood in a garrison town.

‘And George seeks advantage at every moment,’ Richard says. ‘He cannot stop himself, he thinks of nothing but the crown he lost to Edward and the fortune he lost to me. His
greed is phenomenal, Anne. He just goes on and on trying to get more land, trying to get more offices. He goes around court like a great carp with his mouth wide open gulping in fees. And he lives
like a prince himself. God knows how much he spends on his London house buying friends and extending his influence.’

A skylark rises up from the meadow below the castle and sings as it beats upwards, and then pauses and then mounts again, going up and up as if it would never stop until it gets to heaven. I
remember my father telling me to watch, watch carefully, for in a moment it will close its wings and drop silently, drop like a stone to the ground – and where it lands there will be its
little down-lined nest and four speckled eggs, arranged point to the centre, for the skylark is a tidy bird, as any candidate for heaven should be.

We are coming down the winding stair of the gatehouse tower to the main courtyard of the castle as the doors are thrown open and a litter with curtains drawn and twenty outriders comes
clattering through the gate.

‘Who’s this?’ I ask. ‘A lady? Visiting us?’

Richard steps forwards and throws a salute at the leader of the guard as if he has been expecting him. ‘All well?’

The man takes off his bonnet and rubs his sweaty forehead. I recognise James Tyrrell, one of Richard’s most trusted men of the household, Robert Brackenbury behind him. ‘All
well,’ he confirms. ‘Nobody followed us, as far as I know, and nobody challenged us on the road.’

I tug at Richard’s arm. ‘Who is this visitor?’

‘You made good time,’ Richard remarks, ignoring me.

A hand draws back the curtains of the litter, and Sir James turns to help the lady out. She puts aside the rugs that have kept her warm on the journey, and she takes his hand. He stands before
her, hiding her face.

‘Not your mother?’ I whisper to Richard, horrified at the thought of a formal visit.

‘No,’ he says, watching as the lady steps out of the litter and straightens up with a little grunt of discomfort. Sir James steps aside. With a sensation like fainting, I recognise
my mother, whom I have not seen for two long years, brought back from the grave, or at any rate from Beaulieu Abbey, stepping out of the litter like a living ghost, turning to smile a ghastly
triumphant beam at me, the daughter who left her in prison, the daughter who left her for dead.

‘Why is she here?’ I demand.

We are in the privy chamber, completely alone, the door shut on the company in the great chamber outside who are waiting for us to lead them into dinner, the cooks in the kitchen down below
cursing as meat is overdone and the pastries too crisp and brown.

‘I rescued her,’ he says calmly. ‘I thought you would be pleased.’

I break off to look at him. He cannot have thought that I would be pleased. His bland expression tells me that he knows that bringing my mother to me is to stir up a war inside our family that
has been raging in furious letters and painful apologies and excuses for two long years. After her last letter when she named my son, her own grandson, a bastard and my husband a thief she has not
written to me again. She told me that I had shamed my father and betrayed her. She told me that I was no daughter of hers. She cursed me with a mother’s curse and said that I would live
without her blessing and she would go to her grave without saying my name. I did not reply – not so much as a single word. I decided when I married Richard that I had neither mother nor
father. One had died on the battlefield, one had deserted me and sent me to a battle alone. Isabel and I call ourselves orphans.

Until now. ‘Richard, for the love of God, why have you brought her here?’

Finally, he decides to be honest. ‘George was going to take her,’ he says. ‘I am sure of it. George was going to kidnap her, appeal against the king’s decision to share
her fortune between the two of us, demand justice for her. Reclaim it all for her as if he was her knight errant, and then, when she had all the Warwick lands back in her keeping, he was going to
take them from her. He was going to keep her in his household like he took you – and he would have got everything that we have, Anne. I had to get her before he did.’

‘So to prevent George taking her – you have taken her,’ I say drily. ‘Doing the very crime that you suspect he would have done.’

He looks at me grimly. ‘When I married you, I said I would protect you. I am protecting your interests now.’

The mention of our courtship silences me. ‘I didn’t think it would mean this.’

‘Neither did I,’ he says. ‘But I promised to protect you and this is what it takes.’

‘Where is she going to live?’ My head is whirling. ‘She can’t go into sanctuary again, can she?’

‘Here.’

‘Here?’ I almost scream at him.

‘Yes.’

‘Richard, I am frightened to even see her. She said I was no daughter of hers. She said I would never have a mother’s blessing. She said I should not marry you. She called you things
that you would never forgive! She said our son—’ I break off. ‘I won’t repeat it. I won’t think about it.’

‘I don’t need to hear it,’ he says cheerfully. ‘And I don’t need to forgive her. And you don’t need her blessing. She will live here as our guest. You need
never see her if you don’t want to. She can dine in her rooms, she can pray in her own chapel. We have enough space here, God knows. We can give her a household of her own. She need not
trouble you.’

‘How can she not trouble me? She is my mother! She is my mother who has set her face against me. She said that she would go to her grave without saying my name!’

‘Think of her as your prisoner.’

I sink into a chair, staring at him. ‘My mother is my prisoner?’

‘She was a prisoner at Beaulieu Abbey. Now she is a prisoner here. She is never going to regain her fortune, she lost that when she claimed sanctuary at the moment that she heard of your
father’s death. She chose then to leave you to whatever danger the battle would bring. Now she has the life that she chose then. She can abide by her choice. She is a pauper, she is in
prison. It just happens that she is a prisoner here rather than in Beaulieu. She might like that. She might prefer it here. This was her home, after all.’

‘She came here as a bride, it was her family home,’ I say quietly. ‘Every stone in every wall will speak to her of her rights.’

‘Well then . . .’

‘It’s still hers.’ I look at his young handsome determined face, and realise that nothing I say will make any difference. ‘We live here like thieves and now the true
owner will be watching us collect her rents, claiming her dues, sheltered by her walls, living under her roof.’

He shrugs and I break off. I knew that he was a man of abrupt decision, a man who was capable – just like his brother – of powerful, rapid acts. The York boys spent their childhood
in rebellion against the king, watching their father and then their brother risking everything at war. All the York brothers are capable of dauntless courage and stubborn endurance. I knew he was a
man who would follow his own interests, without scruples. But I did not know that he was a man who could arrest his own mother-in-law and hold her, against her wishes, steal her lands from her as
she sleeps under his roof. I knew that my husband was a hard man, but I did not know that he was granite.

‘How long will she live here?’

‘Till she dies,’ he says blandly.

I think of King Henry in the Tower, who died the very night that the York brothers came home victorious from Tewkesbury, determined to end his line. I think of him when the three of them quietly
walked into his darkened room as he slept. I think of him sleeping under their protection and never waking again; and I open my mouth to ask him a question, and close it again, saying nothing. I
realise that I am afraid to ask my young husband how long he thinks that my mother may live.