The Kingmaker's Daughter (41 page)

When we get back to our own presence chamber there is a man waiting outside the closed double doors, travel-stained with his wet and muddy cape thrown on the stone windowsill.
Our household guard bars the door to him, waiting for our return.

‘What’s this?’ Richard asks.

He drops to one knee, and holds out a letter. I see a red wax seal. Richard breaks it, and reads the few lines on the one page. I see his face darken and then he glances at me and back down at
the page.

‘What is it?’ I cannot say what I fear – I think at once with horror that it might be a letter from Middleham about our son. ‘What is it, Richard? My lord? I pray you . .
.’ I snatch a breath. ‘Tell me. Tell me quickly.’

He does not answer me at once. He nods over his shoulder to one of his household knights. ‘Wait there. Hold the messenger, I’ll want to see him. See he speaks to no-one.’

Me, he takes by the arm and walks through our presence chamber, through my privy chamber and into my bedroom where no-one will disturb us.

‘What?’ I whisper. ‘Richard, for God’s sake – what is it? Is it our boy, Edward?’

‘It’s your sister,’ he says. His quiet voice makes it sound almost like a question, as if he cannot believe what he has read himself. ‘It’s about your
sister.’

‘Isabel?’

‘Yes. My love – I don’t know how to tell you – George wrote to me, this is his letter, he told me to tell you; but I don’t know how to tell you . . .’

‘What? What about her?’

‘My love, my poor love – she’s dead. George writes that she is dead.’

For a moment, I cannot hear the words. Then I hear them, as if they are clanging like a bell right here, in my bedroom, where only two hours ago I was dressing in my gown and choosing my rubies.
‘Isabel?’

‘Yes. She’s dead, George says.’

‘But how? She was well, she wrote to me, she said it was an easy labour. I had her letter, full of self-praise. She was well, she was very well, she told me to come and see . .
.’

He pauses, as if he has an answer, but does not want to put words to it. ‘I don’t know how. That’s why I’m going to speak with the messenger.’

‘Was she ill?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Did she have childbed fever? Did she bleed?’

‘George doesn’t say that.’

‘What does he say?’

For a moment, I think he is going to refuse to answer me, but then he spreads the letter open, smoothing it flat on the table, and gives it to me, watching my face as I read the words.

Richard takes the letter from my hand and, leaning towards the fire, pushes it into the red embers and stands over it as the paper curls black and then suddenly flares into
flame.

‘She knew it would happen.’ I find I am shaking, from my fingertips to my feet, as if the letter has frozen me with a whistle of an icy gale. ‘She said it would
happen.’

Richard takes hold of me and pushes me to sit on the bed as my knees give way beneath me. ‘George said so too, but I wouldn’t listen to him,’ he says tersely.

‘She said the queen had a spy in her house, and that she has a spy in our house too.’

‘I don’t doubt that. That’s almost certainly true. The queen trusts no-one, and she pays servants for intelligence. So do we all. But why would she poison Isabel?’

‘For revenge,’ I say miserably. ‘Because she has our names on a scrap of paper in an enamelled box hidden among her jewels.’

‘What?’

‘Isabel knew, but I wouldn’t listen. She said the queen has sworn to be avenged on the murderers of her father – that would be our father. Isabel said she had written our names
in blood on a scrap of paper and kept them hidden. Isabel said that one day I would hear she was dead and she would have been poisoned.’

Richard’s hand is on his belt, where his sword would be, as if he thinks we might have to fight for our lives here, in the Palace of Westminster.

‘I didn’t listen!’ The loss of her suddenly hits me and I am shaken by sobs. ‘I didn’t listen to her! And her baby! And Margaret! And Edward! They will have to grow
up without a mother! And I didn’t go to her! I told her she was safe.’

Richard goes to the door. ‘I’m going to talk to the messenger,’ he says.

‘You wouldn’t let me go to her!’ I fire out.

‘Just as well,’ he says drily, and turns the handle of the door.

I scramble to my feet. ‘I’ll come too.’

‘Not if you’re going to cry.’

Roughly, I rub my wet face. ‘I won’t cry. I swear I won’t cry.’

‘I don’t want this news getting about just yet, and not by accident. George will have written to the king also, announcing the death. I don’t want us making accusations and you
crying. You will have to be silent. You will have to be calm. And you will have to meet the queen and say nothing. We will have to act as if we think nothing against her.’

I grit my teeth and turn to him. ‘If George is right, then the queen killed my sister.’ I am not shaking any more and I am not sobbing either. ‘If George’s accusations
are true, then she plans to kill me. If this is true then she is my mortal enemy and we are living in her palace and dining on the food that comes from her kitchen. See – I am not making
accusations, and I am not crying. But I am going to protect me and mine, and I will see her pay for the death of my sister.’

‘If it is true,’ Richard says levelly.

It is like a pledge. ‘If it is true,’ I agree.

WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON, JANUARY 1477

The court wears dark blue in mourning for my sister and I keep to my rooms as much as I can. I cannot bear to look at the queen. I truly believe that in her beautiful face I
see the murderer of my sister. I am afraid for myself. Richard refuses absolutely to discuss anything until we meet with George and know more. But he sends his right-hand man Sir James Tyrrell to
Middleham with instructions to guard our son, to examine every member of our household, especially any that are not Yorkshire born and bred, and to see that Edward’s food is tasted before he
eats anything.

I order my food to be cooked in our private rooms in the palace, and I stay in my privy chamber. I almost never sit with the queen. When I hear a sudden knock on the door I start from my chair
and have to steady myself, holding the table by the fireplace. The guard on the door swings it open and announces George.

He comes in wearing deepest blue, his face drawn and tragic. He takes my hands and kisses me. When he draws back to look at me he has tears in his eyes.

‘Oh, George,’ I whisper.

All his smug confidence has gone; he is lean and handsome in grief. He leans his head against the carved chimney. ‘I still can’t believe it,’ he says quietly. ‘When I see
you here – I can’t believe that she is not here with you.’

‘She wrote to me that she was well.’

‘She was,’ he says eagerly. ‘She was. And so happy! And the baby: a beauty, as always. But then she suddenly weakened, fell away almost overnight, and in the morning she was
gone.’

‘Was it a fever?’ I ask, hoping desperately that he will say yes.

‘Her tongue was black,’ he tells me.

I look at him aghast: it is a sure sign of poison. ‘Who could have done it?’

‘I have my physician inquiring into her household, into our kitchen. I know that the queen had a woman in Isabel’s own confinement room, to report to her at once whether we had a boy
or a girl.’

I give a little hiss of horror.

‘Oh, that’s nothing. I have known of it for months. She will have a servant set to watch you as well,’ he says. ‘And a man placed among the household, perhaps in your
stables to warn her when you mean to travel, perhaps in your hall to listen to the talk. She has watched us all ever since we first came to her court. She will have watched you as well as Isabel.
She trusts no-one.’

‘Edward trusts my husband,’ I protest. ‘They love each other, they are faithful to each other.’

‘And the queen?’

He laughs shortly at my silence.

‘Will you speak to the king about this?’ I ask. ‘Will you name the queen’s guilt?’

‘I think he will offer me a bribe to buy me off,’ George says. ‘And I think I know what it will be. He will want to silence me, he will want me out of the way. He won’t
want me accusing his wife of being a poisoner, naming their children as bastards.’

‘Hush,’ I say, glancing at the door. I go to him at the fireplace so we are head to head, like conspirators, our words blowing up the chimney like smoke.

‘Edward will want me out of the way, somewhere I can’t speak against him.’

I am horrified. ‘What will he do? He will not imprison you?’

George’s smile is a grimace. ‘He will command me to marry again,’ he predicts. ‘I know that is what he plans. He will send me to Burgundy to marry Mary of Burgundy. Her
father is dead, our sister Margaret his widow has suggested my name. Mary is her step-daughter, she can give her in marriage to me. Edward sees this as a way of getting me out of the
country.’

I can feel the tears spill down my cheeks. ‘But Isabel has been dead less than a month,’ I cry. ‘Are you supposed to forget her at once? Is she to be buried and a new wife in
her place within weeks? And what of your children? Are you supposed to take them with you to Flanders?’

‘I’ll refuse him,’ George says. ‘I will never leave my children, I will never leave my country, and I certainly will not leave the murderer of my wife to walk
free.’

I am sobbing, the loss of her is so painful, the thought of George taking another wife so shocking. I feel so alone in this dangerous court without her. George puts his arm around my shaking
shoulders. ‘Sister,’ he says tenderly. ‘My sister. She loved you so much, she was so anxious to protect you. She made me promise that I would warn you. I will protect you
too.’

As always, I have to wait in the queen’s rooms in the hour before dinner for the king and his household to join us, so that we all go into the great hall together. The
queen’s ladies assume that I am quiet from grief, and leave me alone. Only Lady Margaret Stanley, recently come to court with her new husband Thomas, takes me to one side and tells me that
she prays for the soul of my sister and for her blessed children. I am oddly touched by her goodwill and I try to smile and thank her for her prayers. She sent her own son, Henry Tudor, overseas,
for his own safety, as she does not trust this king with his keeping. Young Tudor is of the House of Lancaster, a promising youth. She would not allow him to be raised by a York guardian in this
country, and though she is now married to one of the lords of York and high in favour with both king and queen she still does not trust this royal family enough to bring her boy home. Of all the
court she will understand what it is to fear the king that you serve, she knows what it is to curtsey to the queen, uncertain if she is your enemy.

When Richard comes in with his brother the king, all smiles, and takes me by the hand to lead me into dinner, I walk close to him and whisper that George has come to court and promised me that
he will find the murderer of my sister.

‘How will he do that from Flanders?’ Richard asks caustically.

‘He won’t go,’ I say. ‘He refuses to go.’

Richard’s crack of laughter is so loud that the king looks back and grins at him. ‘What’s the jest?’ he asks.

‘Nothing,’ Richard calls to his brother. ‘Nothing. My wife told me a jest about George.’

‘Our duke?’ the king asks, smiling at me. ‘Our Duke of Burgundy? Our Prince of Scotland?’ The queen laughs aloud and taps the king on the arm as if to reprove him for
publicly mocking his brother though her grey eyes gleam. I seem to be the only person who does not understand the richness of the humour. Richard draws me to one side and lets the dinner procession
go past us. ‘It’s not true,’ he says. ‘It’s the reverse of the truth. It is George who is demanding a chance at the dukedom of Burgundy. He hopes to become the duke of
one of the richest countries in Europe and marry Mary of Burgundy. Or if not her, then the Princess of Scotland. He’s not particular as long as his next wife is wealthy and commands a
kingdom.’