The White Queen (30 page)

“And so?” I ask, unmoved.

“And so, I know you are with child. For the only time you ever sit with your feet
up is when you are with child. And that is why I ask you if you think I am blind or
just stupid?”

“I think you are as fertile as a bull in a water meadow,
if you want to know what I think!” I exclaim. “Every other year I have a baby to you.”

“And all the others,” he says unrepentantly. “Don’t forget them. So when is this precious
one due?”

“In the summer,” I say. “And more than that . . .”

“Yes?”

I pull his fair head towards me, and whisper in his ear. “I think he will be a boy.”

His head jerks up, his face filled with joy. “You do? You have signs?”

“Women’s fancies,” I say, thinking of my mother with her head on one side as if she
were listening for the sound of little feet in riding boots clattering across heaven.
“But I think so. I hope so.”

“A boy born to the Yorks at a time of peace,” he says longingly. “Ah, my dear, you
are a good wife. You are my beauty. You are my only love.”

“So what about all the others?”

He dismisses the mistresses and their babies with one wave of his hand. “Forget them.
I have. The only woman in the world for me is you. Now as always.”

He kisses me gently, holding back his usual ready arousal. We will not be lovers again
until after the baby is born and I have been churched. “My darling,” he whispers to
me.

We sit for a little while in silence, watching the fire. “But what did you come to
see me for?” I ask.

“Ah, yes. This should make no difference, I think. I
want to send Baby to start his little kingdom in Wales. To Ludlow Castle.”

I nod. This is how it has to be. This is what it means to have a prince and not a
girl. My oldest darling daughter Elizabeth can stay with me until she is married,
but my son has to go and serve his apprenticeship as a king. He has to go to Wales,
for he is Prince of Wales, and he has to rule it with his own council.

“But he is not yet three,” I say plaintively.

“Old enough,” my husband says. “And you shall travel to Ludlow with him, if you think
you are strong enough, and order it just as you wish, and make sure that he has the
companions and tutors that you want. And I will appoint you to his council and you
can choose the other members, and you will guide him and order his studies and his
life until he is fourteen.”

I pull Edward’s face towards me again and I kiss his mouth. “Thank you,” I say. He
is leaving my son in my keeping when most kings would say that the boy has to live
only with men, taken away from the counsels of women. But Edward makes me the guardian
of my son, honors my love for him, respects my judgment. I can bear the separation
from Baby if I am to appoint his council, for it means that I shall visit him often
and his life shall still be in my keeping.

“And he can come home for feast days and holy days,” Edward says. “I shall miss him
too, you know. But he has to be in his principality. He has to make a start at ruling.
Wales has to know their prince, and
learn to love him. He has to know his land as from childhood, and thus we keep their
loyalty.”

“I know,” I say. “I know.”

“And Wales has always been loyal to the Tudors,” Edward adds, almost as an aside.
“And I want them to forget him.”

I consider carefully
who shall have the raising of my boy in Wales, and who shall head his council and
rule Wales for him until he is of age, and then I come to the decision I would have
made if I had picked the first name that came to mind, without thinking. Of course.
Who else would I trust with the most precious possession in the world?

I go to my brother Anthony’s rooms, which are set back from the main stair, overlooking
the private gardens. His door is guarded by his manservant, who swings it open and
announces me in a respectful whisper. I cross through his presence chamber and knock
on the door of his private room, and enter.

He is seated at a table before the fire, a glass of wine in his hand, a dozen well-sharpened
quills before him, sheets of expensive paper covered with crossed-through lines. He
is writing, as he does most afternoons when the early darkness of winter drives everyone
indoors. He writes every day now, and he no longer posts his poems in the joust: they
are too important to him.

He smiles and sets a chair for me close to the fire. He puts a footstool under my
feet without comment.
He will have guessed that I am with child. Anthony has the eyes of a poet as well
as the words. He doesn’t miss much.

“I am honored,” he says with a smile. “Do you have a command for me, Your Grace, or
is this a private visit?”

“It is a request,” I say. “Because Edward is going to send Baby to Wales to set up
his court, and I want you to go with him as his chief advisor.”

“Won’t Edward send Hastings?” he asks.

“No, I am to appoint Baby’s council. Anthony, there is much profit to be won from
Wales. It needs a strong hand, and I would want it to be under our family’s command.
It can’t be Hastings, or Richard. I don’t like Hastings, and I never will, and Richard
has the Neville lands in the north—we can’t let him have the west too.”

Anthony shrugs. “We have enough wealth and influence, don’t we?”

“You can never have too much.” I state the obvious. “And anyway, the most important
thing is that I want you to have the guardianship of Baby.”

“You’d better stop calling him Baby if he is to be Prince of Wales with his own court,”
my brother reminds me. “He will be moving to a man’s estate, his own command, his
own court, his own country. Soon you will be seeking a princess for him to marry.”

I smile into the warm flames. “I know, I know. We are considering it already. I can’t
believe it. I call him Baby because I like to remember how he was when he was in his
gowns, but he has his short clothes and
he has his own pony now, and is growing every day. I change his riding boots every
quarter.”

“He’s a fine little boy,” Anthony says. “And though he takes after his father I sometimes
think I see his grandfather in him. You can see he is a Woodville, one of ours.”

“I won’t have anyone but you be his guardian,” I say. “He must be raised as a Rivers
at a Rivers court. Hastings is a brute, and I wouldn’t trust the care of my cat to
either of Edward’s brothers: George thinks of nothing but himself, and Richard is
too young. I want my Prince Edward to learn from you, Anthony. You wouldn’t want anyone
else to influence him, would you?”

He shakes his head. “I wouldn’t have him raised by any of them. I didn’t realize the
king was setting him up in Wales so soon.”

“This spring,” I say. “I don’t know how I shall bear to let him go.”

Anthony pauses. “I won’t be able to take my wife with me,” he says. “If you thought
she might be the Lady of Ludlow. She is not strong enough, and this year she is worse
than ever, weaker.”

“I know. If she wants to live at court, I will see she is well cared for. But you
would not stay behind for her?”

He shakes his head. “God bless her, no.”

“So you will go?”

“I will, and you can visit us,” Anthony says grandly. “At our new court. Where will
we be? Ludlow?”

I nod. “You can learn Welsh and become a bard,” I say.

“Well, I can promise to bring up the boy as you and our family would wish,” he says.
“I can keep him to his learning and to his sports. I can teach him what he will need
to be a good king of York. And it is something, to raise a king. It is a legacy to
leave: that of making the boy who will be king.”

“Enough to sacrifice your pilgrimage for another year?” I ask.

“You know I can never refuse you. And your word is the king’s command and nobody can
refuse that. But in truth, I would not refuse to serve the young Prince Edward: it
will be something to be guardian of such a boy. I should be proud to have the making
of the next King of England. And I will be glad to be at the court of the Prince of
Wales.”

“Do I always have to call him that now? Is he not to be Baby anymore?”

“You do.”

The young Edward, Prince of Wales and his uncle Earl Rivers, my Grey son Richard,
now Sir Richard by order of his stepfather the king, and I make a grand progress to
Wales so the little prince can see his country and be seen by as many people as possible.
His father says that this is how we make our rule secure: we show ourselves to the
people, and by demonstrating our wealth, our fertility, and our elegance we make them
feel secure in their monarchy.

We go by slow stages. Edward is strong, but he is not yet three years old and riding
all day is too tiring for him. I order that he shall have a rest every afternoon,
and go to bed in my chamber, early at night. I am glad of the leisurely pace on my
own account, riding pillion so that I can sit sideways as the new curve of my belly
is starting to show. We reach the pretty town of Ludlow without incident, and I decide
to stay in Wales with my firstborn son for the first half year, until I am certain
that the household is organized for his comfort and safety, and that he is settled
and happy in his new home.

He is all delight; there is no regret for him. He misses the company of his sisters,
but he loves being the little prince at his own court, and he enjoys the company of
his half brother, Richard, and his uncle. He starts to learn the land around the castle,
the deep valleys and beautiful mountains. He has the servants who have been with him
since babyhood. He has new friends in the children of his court, who are brought to
learn and play with him, and he has the watchful care of my brother. It is I who cannot
sleep for the week before I am due to leave him. Anthony is at ease, Richard is happy,
and Baby is joyous in his new home.

Of course, it is almost unbearable for me to leave him, for we have not been an ordinary
royal family. We have not had a life of formality and distance. This boy was born
in sanctuary under threat of death. He slept in my bed for the first few months of
his life—unheard of for a royal prince. He had no wet nurse; I suckled him myself,
and it was my fingers that his little hands gripped as he first learned to walk. Neither
he, nor any of the others, were sent away to be raised by nurses or in a royal nursery
at another palace. Edward has kept his children close, and this, his oldest son, is
the first to leave us to take up his royal duties. I love him with a passion: he is
my golden boy, the boy who came at last to secure my position as queen and to give
his father, then nothing more than a York pretender, a stronger claim to the throne.
He is my prince, he is the crown of our marriage, he is our future.

Edward comes to join me for my last month at Ludlow in June, bringing the news that
Anthony’s wife, Lady Elizabeth, has died. She had been in ill health for years with
a wasting sickness. Anthony orders Masses
said for her soul, and I, secretly and ashamed of myself, start to wonder who might
be the next wife for my brother.

“Time enough for that,” Edward says. “But Anthony will have to play his part for the
safety of the kingdom. He might have to marry a French princess. I need allies.”

“But not go from home,” I say. “And not leave Edward?”

“No. I see he has made Ludlow his own. And Edward will need him here when we leave.
And we must leave soon. I have given orders that we will go within the month.”

I gasp, though in truth I have known that this day must come.

“We will come again to see him,” he promises me. “And he will come to us. No need
to look so tragic, my love. He is starting his work as a prince of the House of York:
this is his future. You must be glad for him.”

“I am glad,” I say, without any conviction at all.

When it is time for me to go, I have to pinch my cheeks to bring color into them,
and bite my mouth to stop myself crying. Anthony knows what it costs me to leave the
three of them, but Baby is happy, confident that he will come to court in London soon
on a visit, enjoying his new freedom and the importance of being the prince in his
own country. He lets me kiss him, and hold him without wriggling. He even whispers
in my ear, “I love you, Mama,” then he kneels for my blessing; but he comes up smiling.

Anthony lifts me into the pillion saddle behind my master of horse and I hold on tightly
to his belt. I am awkward now, in the seventh month of my pregnancy. A sudden wave
of the darkest anxiety comes over me, and I look from my brother to my two sons, real
fear clutching at me. “Take care,” I say to Baby.

“Look after him,” I say to Anthony. “Write to me. Don’t let him take jumps on his
pony. I know that he wants to, but he’s too small. And don’t let him get chilled.
Don’t let him read in poor light, and keep him away from anyone with illness. If there
is plague in the town, then take him right away.” I cannot think what I should warn
them against; I am just flooded with anxiety as I look from one smiling face to another.
“Really,” I say weakly. “Really, Anthony: guard him.”