The Kingmaker's Daughter (44 page)

‘It’s against the law to forecast the death of the king,’ I whisper.

‘It’s against the law to poison a duchess, and the queen did that without reprisal. I should like to see her challenge me. I am armed against her now, I don’t fear her.’
He rises to go. ‘You always wear your crucifix?’ he asks. ‘You wear the amulet I gave you? You always carry your rosary in your pocket?’

‘Always.’

‘I will get Burdett to write a spell for you to carry, deep magic to hold her at bay.’

I shake my head. ‘I don’t believe in such things. I won’t believe in such things. We should not fight her with magic, it means we are no better than her. What are we to do? How
far should we go? Invoke the devil? Call up Satan?’

‘I would have called up Satan himself to defend Isabel against her,’ he says bitterly. ‘For I have lost a wife I loved, to the queen’s poisoner, I have lost my baby to
her accomplice, and before that a son, my first son, in a storm of a witch’s wind. She uses magic. She uses dark arts. We have to use them against her. We have to turn her own weapons against
her.’

There is a knock at the door. ‘Message for the Duke of Clarence!’ someone shouts from outside.

‘Here!’ George shouts, and the messenger comes into the room and my husband Richard strolls in behind him.

‘I didn’t know you were here,’ he remarks to George, casting a frowning glance at me; he is determined that we must be neutral in the struggle between the two brothers. George
does not reply, as he is reading the message over and over again. Then he looks up. ‘Did you know of this?’ he demands of Richard. ‘Or are you a part of it? Are you here to arrest
me?’

‘Arrest you?’ Richard repeats. ‘Why would I arrest you? Unless endless gossiping and rudeness and glumness is a crime, in which case I should.’

George does not respond to this joke at all. ‘Richard, do you know of this: yes or no?’

‘Of what? What does it say?’

‘The king has arrested my friend, Thomas Burdett, my protector, my advisor. Arrested him and charged him with treason and sorcery.’

Richard’s face is grim. ‘Damnation. Has he done so?’

‘Arrested my closest advisor? Yes. This is to threaten me.’

‘Don’t say so, George. Don’t make it worse than it is. I knew only that he was thinking of it. I know that you have pushed him so far that he doesn’t know what he should
do.’

‘You didn’t warn me?’

‘I warned you that your accusations and your spreading of slander and your insulting behaviour would cause trouble.’

‘He is in mourning for his wife!’ I protest. ‘He knows that she was murdered. How should he behave?’

‘Richard, you must support me.’ George turns to him. ‘Of course I have advisors to protect me against the ill-wishing of the queen, to guard me from poison and enchantments.
Why should I not? When the whole court knows what she did to my wife? I have done nothing more than you.’

‘Not so fast! I have not accused the queen of murder.’

‘No; but have you set someone to guard your house? Your kitchens? Your wife? Your son?’

Richard bites his lip. ‘George—’

‘Brother, you must stand by me against her. She has taken my wife, she has her sights on me. She will murder your wife and then you. She is a woman of most terrible enmity. Richard, I call
on you as my brother to stand by me. I beg you not to abandon me to her enmity. She will not stop until we three are dead, and our children too.’

‘She is the queen,’ Richard says. ‘And you’re not making any sense at all. She is greedy, God knows, and she has overmuch influence with Edward, but . . .’

George flings himself to the door. ‘The king shall not hurt one hair of the head of this innocent man,’ he says. ‘This is Her doing. She thinks to pay me back for the death of
Ankarette. They think to take my honest servant in payment for the death of their spy and poisoner. But she will see that she dare not touch me. I am a royal duke – does she think my servants
can be thrown into a common gaol?’

George dashes out to save Burdett; but he cannot save him. The royal inquiry into Burdett and his colleagues – for George has hired two other advisors, and possibly more
– reveals a plot of spells and forecasting, threats and fears. Many wise people do not believe one word of this; but Thomas Burdett, Dr John Stacey and Thomas Blake, his chaplain, are found
guilty of treason and sentenced to be beheaded. Thomas Blake is saved from the scaffold by an appeal to Edward, but the other two are sent to die, protesting their innocence to the last moment.
They refuse the traditional confession of their guilt that buys a man a quicker death and protects the inheritance of his heirs. Instead, they go to the scaffold like innocent men who will not be
silenced, shouting that they have done nothing but study, that they are innocent of any wrongdoing, that the queen has turned their learning against them and has had them killed to ensure their
silence.

George tears into the king’s council meeting at Westminster, protesting his innocence, protesting the innocence of the dead men, and has his spokesman read the words of their speeches from
the gallows – powerful words from men about to meet their maker, saying they are innocent of any charge.

‘This is a declaration of war,’ Richard says shortly. We are riding side by side through the streets of London, on our way to dine at court. The queen is about to go
into confinement yet again, to prepare for the birth of yet another baby; this is a dinner to honour her before she withdraws. She is leaving a court buzzing with gossip about witchcraft, sorcerers
and poisonings. She must feel as if all the peace and elegance that she has worked for is falling apart. She must feel as if she is discovered, as if her true nature, the fish beneath the woman, is
pushing its scaly head through her very skin.

It is a hot May afternoon and I am dressed very richly in red silks, and my horse has a saddle of red leather and a red leather bridle. Richard has a new jerkin of black velvet with embroidered
white linen beneath. We may be going to dinner; but I have eaten already. I never take anything that comes from the queen’s kitchens now, and when she glances over to me she can see me with
my fork poised to eat, crumbling bread, spreading the sauce with a spoon, and then putting my plate to one side. I pretend that I am eating food that comes from her kitchen, she pretends that she
does not see that I am eating nothing. We both know that I think she will poison me if she can. We both know that I am not like George or my sister; I don’t have the courage to challenge her
in public. My husband is determined to be her friend. I am easy prey to her ill-will.

‘A declaration of war?’ I repeat. ‘Why?’

‘George is saying openly that Edward was not our father’s true-born son and heir. He is telling everyone that Edward’s marriage was brought about by witchcraft and his sons are
bastards. He is saying Edward prevented him from marrying Mary of Burgundy because he knows that he would claim the throne of England with her army. He says that many people would rise in his
support, that he is better loved than the king. He is openly repeating everything he has whispered before. This is as bad as a declaration of war. Edward will have to silence him.’

We ride into the courtyard of Westminster Palace, the herald announces our titles and the trumpeters blow a blast of welcome. The standard bearers dip the flags to acknowledge the arrival of a
royal duke and duchess. My horse stands still as two liveried servants help me down from the saddle and I rejoin Richard as he waits in a doorway.

‘How can the king silence his brother?’ I pursue. ‘Half of London is now saying the same thing. How can Edward silence them all?’

Richard puts my hand on his arm and smiles around at the people who throng the gallery that leads to the stable yard. He leads me onward. ‘Edward can silence George. At last, I think he is
driven to do it. He is going to give him one last warning and then he will charge him with treason.’

The crime of treason carries a death sentence. Edward the king is going to kill his own brother. I stop still with the shock and feel my head swim. Richard takes my hand. We stand for a moment,
handclasped as if we are clinging to each other in this new and terrifying world. We don’t notice the passing servants, or the courtiers hurrying by. Richard looks into my eyes and once again
I know us for the children that we were, who had to make our own destiny in a world we could not understand.

‘The queen has told Edward that she will not feel safe, going into her confinement, if George is still at large. She has demanded his arrest for her own safety. Edward has to satisfy her.
She is putting the life of his child against his brother.’

‘Tyranny!’ I breathe the word and for once Richard does not defend his brother. His young face is dark with anxiety.

‘God knows where we are going. God knows where the queen has taken us. We are the sons of York, Edward saw our three suns in the sky. How can we be divided by one woman?’

We turn into the great hall of Westminster Palace and Richard raises his hands to acknowledge the cheers and bows from the people gathered there and in the gallery to watch the nobility arrive.
‘Do you eat the food?’ he asks quietly.

I shake my head. ‘I never eat the food from the queen’s kitchen,’ I tell him in a whisper. ‘Not since George warned me.’

‘Neither do I,’ he says with a sigh. ‘Not any more.’

MIDDLEHAM CASTLE, YORKSHIRE, SUMMER 1477

We leave London, with George’s fate still unsettled. I might almost say we flee from London. Richard and I ride north away from the city, which is racked with rumour and
suspicion, to get home, where the air is clear and where people speak their minds and not for their own advantage, and where the great northern skies bear down on the mossy green hills and we can
be at peace, far from court, far from the Woodville family and the Rivers adherents, far from the lethal mystery that is the Queen of England.

Our son Edward greets us with joy, and has much to show us with the bursting pride of a four-year-old. He has learned to ride his little pony and tilt at the quintain; his pony is a skilled
steady little animal that knows its business and rides at a bright trot at exactly the right angle for Edward’s little lance to hit the target. His tutor laughs and praises him and glances at
me to see me alight with pride. He is progressing in his studies and is starting to read Latin and Greek. ‘So hard!’ I protest to his tutor.

‘The earlier he starts, the easier it is for him to learn,’ he assures me. ‘And already he says his prayers and follows the mass in Latin. It is just to build on that
knowledge.’

His tutor allows him days at liberty so that he and I can ride out together and I buy him a little merlin falcon so that he can come hunting with us with his own bird. He is like a little
nobleman in miniature, astride his stocky pony with the pretty falcon on his wrist, and he rides all day and denies that he is tired, though twice he falls asleep on the ride home and Richard,
astride his big hunter, carries his little son in his arms, while I lead the pony.

At night he dines with us in the great hall, sitting between us at the top table, looking down over the beautiful hall crowded with our soldiers, guards and manservants. The people come in from
Middleham to see us dine, and to carry away the scraps from the dinners and I hear them comment on the bearing and charm of the little lord: my Edward. After dinner, when Richard withdraws to his
privy chamber and sits by the fire to read, I go with Edward to the nursery tower and see him undressed and put to bed. It is then, when he is newly washed and smelling sweet, when his face is as
smooth and as pale as the linen of his pillow, that I kiss him and know what it is to love someone more than life itself.