The Kingmaker's Daughter (6 page)

‘And since you are to marry George . . .’

‘I know,’ she says kindly. ‘We should have been married together to the brothers. But I shan’t leave you. I’ll ask Father if you can come and live with us when I am
a duchess and living at court. You can be my maid in waiting.’

‘It’s just that I rather wanted to be a duchess myself.’

‘Yes; but you can’t,’ she says.

CALAIS CASTLE, 11 JULY 1469

Isabel wears a gown of brilliant white silk with cloth-of-gold sleeves. I walk behind her carrying her ermine cloak, wearing white and silver. She has a high headdress draped
with a white veil of priceless lace that makes her look six feet tall, a goddess, a giantess. George, the bridegroom, is in deep purple velvet, the colour of emperors. Almost everyone from the
English court is here. If the king did not know of the secret wedding he will have realised it when he woke this morning to find half his court is missing. His own mother, Duchess Cecily, waved off
the wedding party from Sandwich, blessing the plans of her best-loved son George over the plans of her disobedient son Edward.

Richard was left behind with his tutor and friends at Warwick Castle; Father didn’t tell him where we were going, he didn’t even know we were coming here to celebrate a grand
wedding. I wonder if he is sorry that he has been left out. I hope very much that he thinks he has missed a great chance and been played as a fool. Isabel may be the oldest Neville girl, and the
most beautiful, she may be the one that everyone says is so graceful and well-bred – but I have an inheritance as great as Isabel’s and I may very well grow into looks. Then Richard
will have missed a beautiful wealthy wife and some shabby Spanish princess will not be half such a treasure as I might have been. I think with some pleasure of him being filled with regret when I
grow rounded and curvy and my hair goes fair like the queen’s, and I get a secret smile like hers and he sees me married to a wealthy prince, dripping in furs, and he knows that I am lost to
him, just like Guinevere.

This is not just a wedding; it is a celebration of my father’s power. Nobody seeing the court assembled here at my father’s invitation, bowing as low to him as if he were a king when
he walks through the beautiful galleries of Calais Castle, set in the fortress town that he has held for England for years, can doubt for a moment that here is a power equal to the King of England,
perhaps even greater than the King of England. If Edward chooses to ignore my father’s advice he can consider that there are many who think that my father is the better man; certainly he is a
richer man with a bigger army. And now here is the king’s brother, forbidden to marry, but freely taking my sister’s hand in his own, smiling at her with his blond easy charm, and
pledging himself.

The wedding feast goes on for all the afternoon, long into the night: dish after dish comes from the kitchen trumpeted by our musicians, meats and fruits, breads and sweetmeats, thick English
puddings and French delicacies. It makes the queen’s coronation feast seem like nothing. Father has outdone the King of England in a great demonstration of his wealth and power. This is a
rival court that outshines Edward and his commoner wife. My father is as grand as the wealthy Duke of Burgundy, grander than the French king. Isabel sits in state in the middle of the top table and
waves dish after dish down the hall to the tables that must be honoured. George, handsome as a prince, puts little cuts of meat on Isabel’s plate, leans towards her, whispers in her ear, and
smiles over at me, as if he would have me in his keeping too. I cannot help but smile back: there is something thrilling about George in his wedding suit, as handsome and as confident as a king
himself.

‘Don’t fear, little one, there will be a grand wedding for you too,’ my father whispers to me as he walks behind my table where I am seated at the head of the ladies in
waiting.

‘I thought—’

‘I know you did,’ he says, cutting me short. ‘But Richard is heart and soul for his brother the king, he would never do anything against Edward. I could not even ask him. But
George here,’ he glances back at the top table where George is helping himself to another goblet of malmsey wine, ‘George loves himself before any other, George will take the best route
for George, and besides, I have great plans for him.’

I wait in case he will say more, but instead he gently pats my shoulder. ‘You will have to take your sister to her bedroom and get her ready,’ he says. ‘Your mother will give
you the word.’

I look up at my mother who is eyeing the hall, judging the servants, watching the guests. She nods at me and I rise to my feet, and Isabel suddenly pales as she realises that the wedding feast
is over and the bedding must start.

There is a noisy and joyful parade that takes George to my sister’s new big bedroom; the respect for my mother prevents it being too bawdy, but the men of the garrison bellow their
encouragement and all the wedding guests throw flowers under her feet and call out blessings. My sister and her new husband are put to bed by an archbishop, twenty maids in waiting and five knights
of the garter, in a cloud of incense wafted by half a dozen priests, to the stentorian bellow of my father’s shouted good wishes. My mother and I are the last to leave the room, and as I
glance back Izzy is sitting up in bed, looking very pale as if she is afraid. George leans back on the pillows beside her, naked to the waist, his blond hair glinting on his chest, his broad smile
very confident.

I hesitate. This will be the first night in all our lives that we have slept apart. I don’t think I want to sleep alone, I don’t think I can sleep without my sister’s peaceful
warmth in my bed, and I doubt that Izzy wants George, so loud, so blond, so drunk, as a bed-mate. Izzy looks at me as if she would say something. My mother, sensing the bond between us, puts a hand
on my shoulder and starts to lead me from the room.

‘Annie, don’t go,’ Izzy says quietly. I turn back and see that she is shaking with fear. She stretches out a hand to me as if she would keep me with her, for just a moment
longer. ‘Annie!’ she whispers. I can’t resist the alarm in her voice. I turn to go back into the room as my mother takes me firmly by the arm, and closes the bedroom door behind
us.

That night I sleep alone, refusing the company of one of the maids; if I cannot be with my sister then I don’t want any bedfellow at all. I lie in the cold sheets and
there is no-one to exchange a whispered account of the day, no-one to tease, no-one to torment me. Even when we fought like cats in a basket, there was always the comfort of having Izzy there to
fight with. Like the very walls of Calais Castle she is part of the scenery of my life. I was born and bred to be secondary to her: the beauty of the family. I have always followed behind an
ambitious, determined, vocal older sister. Now suddenly I am alone. I lie awake for a long time, staring into the darkness, wondering what my life will be, now I no longer have an older sister to
tell me what to do. I think that in the morning everything will be utterly different.

CALAIS CASTLE, 12 JULY 1469

In the morning things are even more different than I had dreamed in my solitary night. The whole place is wide-awake at dawn. The rumble of cartwheels from the kitchen yard to
the quayside, the shouting from the armoury, and the scramble and haste in the basin of the port show that far from celebrating a wedding, Father is preparing to go to sea.

‘Is it pirates?’ I ask my tutor, catching his hand as he goes past me with a writing desk towards my father’s rooms. ‘Please, sir, is it a raid of pirates?’

‘No,’ he says, his face pale and frightened. ‘Worse. Go to your mother, Lady Anne. I cannot stop and talk now. I have to go to your father and take down his orders.’

Worse than pirates must mean that the French are about to attack. If so, then we are at war and half the English court has been caught in a castle under siege. This is the worst thing that has
ever happened. I go to my mother’s rooms at the run but find everything unnaturally quiet. Mother is seated beside Isabel. Isabel is in her new gown but there is no excited chatter of bridal
joy. Isabel looks furious, the women, sewing shirts in a circle, are silent with a sort of feverish anticipation. I curtsey low to my mother: ‘Please, Lady Mother,’ I say.
‘What’s happening?’

‘You may tell her,’ my mother says coolly to Isabel, and I scurry to my sister and pull up a stool beside her chair.

‘Are you all right?’ I mutter.

‘Yes,’ she replies. ‘It wasn’t too bad.’

‘Did it hurt?’

She nods. ‘Horrible. And disgusting. First horrible, then disgusting.’

‘What’s happening?’

‘Father’s making war on the king.’

‘No!’ I speak too loudly and my mother shoots a sharp look at me. I clap my hand over my mouth and I know that over the top of my gagging palm my eyes are huge with shock.
‘Isabel – no!’

‘It was planned,’ she whispers fiercely. ‘Planned all along, and I was part of it. He said he had a great plan. I thought he meant my wedding. I didn’t know it was
this.’

I roll my eyes towards the stony face of my mother who simply glares at me as if my sister is married to a treasonous royal every day of the week and it is vulgar of me to show any surprise.

‘Did our Lady Mother know?’ I whisper. ‘When did she find out?’

‘She knew all along,’ Isabel says bitterly. ‘They all knew. Everyone knew but us.’

I am stunned into silence. I look around the ladies of my mother’s chamber, who are all stitching shirts for the poor as if this were an ordinary day, as if we were not going to war with
the very King of England that we put on the throne only eight years ago.

‘He’s arming the fleet. They’re sailing at once.’

I give a little whimper of shock and bite my palm to silence myself.

‘Oh come on, we can’t talk here,’ Isabel says, jumping to her feet and bobbing a curtsey to our mother. Isabel drags me into an anteroom and up the winding stone stairs to the
leads of the castle where we can look down at the frantic hurry on the quayside as the ships are loaded with weapons and the men carry their armour and tug their horses on board. I can see
Midnight, my father’s great black horse, with a hood over his head so that he will walk up the gangplank. He goes with a great bound, frightened of the echo of the wood under his metal-shod
hooves. If Midnight is anxious then I know there is danger.

‘He’s really doing it,’ I say disbelievingly. ‘He’s really setting sail for England. But what about the king’s mother? Duchess Cecily? She knew. She saw us
all leave from Sandwich. Won’t she warn her son?’

‘She knows,’ Isabel says grimly. ‘She has known for ages. I should think just about everyone knows but the king . . . and me and you. Duchess Cecily has hated the queen from
the moment they first told her that Edward was married in secret. Now she turns against queen and king together. They have had it planned for months. Father’s been paying men to rise up
against the king in the North and the Midlands. My wedding was their signal to rise. Think of it – he told them the very day that I was going to take my vows, so they could rise at the right
time. Now they are up, looking like a rebellion of their own making. They’ve fooled the king into thinking it is a local grievance – he is marching north out of London to settle what he
thinks is a small uprising. He will be away from London when Father lands. He doesn’t know that my wedding was not a wedding but a muster. He doesn’t know that the wedding guests are
sailing to march against him. Father has thrown my bridal veil over an invasion.’