The White Queen (59 page)

The king steps forwards and kisses my mother warmly on both cheeks. “Have you heard
from my dear friend your lord?” he asks my mother.

“Working well in your service,” she says smartly, for Father is missing tonight’s
banquet and all the celebrations, as he is meeting with the King of France himself
and the Duke of Burgundy, meeting with them as an equal, to make peace with these
mighty men of Christendom now that
the sleeping king has been defeated and we are the new rulers of England. My father
is a great man: he is representing this new king and all of England.

The king, the new king—our king—does a funny mock bow to Isabel and pats my cheek;
he has known us since we were little girls too small to come to such banquets. Meanwhile,
my mother looks about her as if we were at home in Calais Castle, seeking to find
fault with something the servants have done. I know that she is longing to see anything
that she can report later to my father as evidence that this most beautiful queen
is unfit for her position. By the sour expression on her face I guess that she has
found nothing.

Nobody likes this queen; I should not admire her. It shouldn’t matter to us that she
smiles warmly at Isabel and me, that she rises from her great chair to come forwards
and clasp my mother’s hands. We are all determined not to like her. My father had
a good marriage planned for this king, a great match: a princess of France. My father
worked at this, prepared the ground, drafted the marriage contract, persuaded people
who hate the French that this would be a good thing for the country, would safeguard
Calais, might even get Bordeaux back into our keeping, but then Edward the new king,
the heart-stoppingly handsome and glamorous new king, our darling Edward—like a younger
brother to my father and a glorious uncle to us—said, as simply as if he was ordering
his dinner, that he was married already and nothing could be done about it. Married
already? Yes, and to Her.

He did very wrong to act without my father’s advice: everyone knows that. It is the
first time he has done so in the long triumphant campaign that took the House of York
from shame, when they had to beg the forgiveness of the sleeping king and the bad
queen, to absolute victory and the throne of England. My father has been at Edward’s
side, advising and guiding him, dictating his every move. My father has always judged
best for him. The king, even though he is king now, is a young man who owes my father
everything. He would not have his throne if it were not for my father taking up his
cause, teaching him how to lead an army, fighting his battles for him. My father risked
his own life: first for Edward’s father, and then for Edward himself—and then, just
when we had won, and Edward was crowned king, and everything should have been wonderful,
forever—he went off and secretly married Her.

She is to lead us in to dinner, and the ladies arrange themselves carefully behind
her; there is a set order and it is extremely important that
you make sure to be in the right place. I am very nearly nine years old, quite old
enough to understand this, and I have been taught the orders of precedence since I
was a little girl in the schoolroom. Since She is to be crowned tomorrow, she goes
first. From now on she will always be first in England. She will walk in front of
my mother for the rest of her life, and that’s another thing that my mother doesn’t
much like. Next should come the king’s mother, but she is not here. She has declared
her absolute enmity to the beautiful Elizabeth Woodville and sworn that she will not
witness the coronation of a commoner. Everyone knows of this rift in the royal family,
and the king’s sisters fall into line without the supervision of their mother. They
look quite lost without the beautiful Duchess Cecily leading the way, and the king
loses his confident smile for just a moment when he sees the space where his mother
should be. I don’t know how he dares to go against the duchess. She is as terrifying
as my mother, she is my father’s aunt, and nobody disobeys either of them. All I can
think is that the king must be very much in love with the new queen to defy his mother.
He must really, really love her.

The queen’s mother is here, though, no chance that she would miss such a moment of
triumph. She steps into her place with her army of sons and daughters behind her,
her handsome husband, Sir Richard Woodville, at her side. He is Baron Rivers, and
everyone whispers the joke that the rivers are rising. Truly, there are an unbelievable
number of them. Elizabeth is the oldest daughter, and behind her mother come the six
sisters and five brothers. I stare at the handsome young man John Woodville, beside
his new wife, looking like a boy escorting his grandmother. He has been bundled into
marriage with the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, my great-aunt Catherine Neville. This
is a disgrace; my father himself says so. My lady, great-aunt Catherine is ancient,
a priceless ruin, nearly seventy years old, and John is a young man of twenty. My
mother says this is how it is going to be if you put a gannet on the throne of England—she
will gobble up everything.

I tear my eyes from the sour, crinkled face of my great-aunt and concentrate on my
own task. My job is to make sure that I stand beside Isabel, behind my mother, and
do not step on her train: absolutely do not step on her train. I am only eight; I
have to make sure that I do this right. Isabel, who is thirteen, sighs as she sees
me look down and shuffle my feet so that my toes go under the rich brocade to make
sure that there is no possibility of mistake. And then Jacquetta, the queen’s mother,
the mother of a gannet, looks backwards, around her own children to see that I am
in
the right place. She looks around as if she cares for my comfort, and when she sees
me, behind my mother, beside Isabel, she gives me a smile as beautiful as her daughter’s
smile, a smile just for me, and then turns back and takes the arm of her handsome
husband and follows her daughter in this, the moment of her utter triumph.

When we have walked through the great hall, through the hundreds of people who stand
and cheer at the sight of the beautiful new queen to be, and everyone is seated, I
can look at the adults again at the high table. I am not the only one staring at the
new queen. She attracts everyone’s attention. She has the most beautiful slanty eyes
of gray, and when she smiles she looks down as if she is laughing to herself about
some delicious secret. Edward the king has placed her beside him on his right hand,
and when he whispers in her ear, she leans towards him as close as if they were about
to kiss. It’s very shocking and wrong but when I look at the new queen’s mother, I
see that she is smiling at her daughter, as if she is happy that they are young and
in love. She doesn’t seem to be ashamed of it at all.

They are a terribly handsome family; nobody can deny that they are as beautiful as
if they had the bluest blood in their veins. And so many of them! Six of the Rivers
family and the two sons from the new queen’s first marriage are children, seated at
our table as if they were young people of royal blood and had a right to sit with
us, the daughters of a countess. I see Isabel look sourly at the four beautiful Rivers
girls from the youngest Katherine Woodville, who is only seven years old, to the oldest
at our table Martha, who is fifteen. These girls, four of them, will have to be given
husbands, dowries, fortunes; and there are not so very many husbands, dowries, fortunes
to be had in England these days—not after a war between the houses of Lancaster and
York, which has gone on now for ten years and killed so many men. These girls will
be compared with us, they will be our rivals. It feels as if the court is flooded
with new clear profiles, skin as bright as a new-minted coin, laughing voices, and
exquisite manners. It’s as if we have been invaded by some beautiful tribe of young
strangers, as if statues have come beautifully to life and are dancing among us, like
birds flown down from the sky to sing or fish leapt from the sea. I look at my mother
and see her flushed with high-bred disdain: she looks as hot and cross as a baker’s
wife. Beside her, the queen glows like a playful angel, her head always tipped towards
her young husband, her lips slightly parted as if she would breathe him in like cool
air.

The grand dinner is an exciting time for me; for we have the king’s brother George
at one end of our table and his youngest brother, Richard, at the foot. The queen’s
mother, Jacquetta, gives the whole table of young people a warm smile, and I guess
that she planned this—thinking it would be fun for us children to be together and
an honor to have George at the head of our table. Isabel is wriggling like a sheared
sheep at having two royal dukes beside her at once. She doesn’t know which way to
look, she is so anxious to impress. And—what is so much worse—the two oldest Rivers
girls, Martha and Eleanor, outshine her without effort. They have the exquisite looks
of this beautiful family and they are confident and assured and smiling. Isabel is
trying too hard, and I am in my usual state of anxiety with my mother’s critical gaze
on me. But the Rivers girls act as if they are here to celebrate a happy event: they
anticipate enjoyment, and they know that great marriages will be made for them. They
are girls confident of themselves and disposed for amusement. Of course the royal
dukes will prefer them to us. George has known us all his life: we are not strange
beauties to him. Richard is one of my father’s wards; when we are in England he is
among the half-dozen boys who live with us. Richard sees us three times a day. Of
course he is bound to look at Martha Woodville, who is all dressed up, new to court,
and a beauty like her sister the new queen. But it is irritating that he does not
look at me at all.

George at fifteen is as handsome as his older brother the king, fair headed and tall.
He says, “This must be the first time you have dined in the Tower, Anne, isn’t it?”
I am thrilled and appalled that he should take notice of me, and my face burns with
a blush; but I say “yes” clearly enough.

Richard at the other end of the table is a year younger than Isabel and no taller
than she, but now that his brother is King of England he seems much more handsome.
Isabel, trying to make conversation with him, turns the talk to riding horses and
asks him does he remember falling off our pony when he was a little boy living with
us at Middleham Castle? He smiles at Martha Woodville and says he doesn’t. Isabel
is trying to make out that we are friends, the very best of friends; but really, most
of the time, he was taught with the other wards in one schoolroom, and we were with
our mother in another room. We saw each other when we were allowed out hunting or
at dinner. Isabel cannot really try to persuade the Rivers girls that we are one happy
family and they are unwanted intruders.

Isabel can make faces all she wants, but I won’t be made to feel
awkward. We have a better right to be seated at this table than anyone else, far better
than the beautiful Rivers girls. We are the richest heiresses in England, and my father
commands the narrow seas between Calais and the English coast. We are of the great
Neville family, guardians of the north of England: we have royal blood in our veins.
My father has been a guardian to Richard and a mentor and advisor to the king himself.
We are as good as anybody in the hall, richer than anyone in this hall, richer even
than the king and a great deal better born than the new queen. I can talk as an equal
to any royal duke of the House of York because without my father, their house would
have lost the wars, Lancaster would still rule, and George, handsome and princely
as he is, would now be brother to a nobody and the son of a traitor.

It is a long dinner, though tomorrow, which is the queen’s coronation dinner, will
be even worse. Tonight they serve thirty-two courses, and the queen sends some special
dishes to our table, to honor us with her attention. George stands up and bows his
thanks to her, and then serves all of us from the silver dish. He sees me watching
him and he gives me a spoonful of extra sauce with a wink. Now and then my mother
glances over at me like a watchtower beacon flaring out over a dark sea. Each time
that I sense her hard gaze on me, I raise my head and smile at her. I am certain that
she cannot fault me. I have one of the new forks in my hand; I have a napkin in my
sleeve, as if I were a French lady, familiar with these new fashions. I have watered
wine in the glass on my right, and I am eating as I have been taught to eat: daintily
and without haste. If George, a royal duke, chooses to single me out for his attention,
then I don’t see why he should not or why anyone should be surprised by it. Certainly,
it comes as no surprise to me.

I share a bed, with Isabel, while we are guests of the king at the Tower on the night
before the queen’s coronation, as I do in our home at Calais, as I have done every
night of my life. I am sent to bed an hour before her, though I am too excited to
sleep. I say my prayers and then lie in my bed and listen to the music drifting up
from the hall below. They are still dancing: the king and his wife love to dance.
When he takes her hand, you can see that he has to stop himself from drawing her closer.
She glances down, and when she looks up, he is still looking at her with his hot look
and she gives him a little smile that is full of promise.