‘Iz, please tell me that Father wouldn’t burn Jacquetta Woodville!’ I whisper.
‘He will,’ my sister says, her face grim. ‘Why else arrest and try her? When I wanted to be a queen I thought it was a story, like the legends, I thought it was all about beautiful dresses and handsome knights. Now I see that it is pitiless. It is a game of chess and Father has me as one of his pieces. Now he uses me on the board, next I may fall to one side and he won’t even think of me, as he brings another piece into play.’
‘Are you afraid?’ I whisper. ‘Are you afraid of falling off to one side?’
‘Yes,’ she says.
ENGLAND, AUTUMN 1469
My father has England in his grip. Victorious, he sends for us to share his triumph. My mother, Isabel and I take ship from Calais in the best vessel of my father’s great fleet, and arrive in London in great state as the women of the new royal house. The former queen Elizabeth skulks in the Tower, my father transfers the former King of England to our castle at Middleham and holds him there. In the absence of any other court we suddenly become the centre for London, for the kingdom. My mother and the king’s mother, Duchess Cecily, are seen everywhere together, with Isabel following behind them, the two great women of the realm and the bride who will be made queen at the next parliament.
This is our moment of triumph: the kingmaker deposing the king who has wearied him to install another, his son-in-law. It is my father who decides who will rule England. It is my father who makes and unmakes the Kings of England. And Isabel is with child, she too is doing just what Father requires, she too is being a kingmaker; she is making a King of England in her belly. Mother prays every morning before a statue of Our Lady that Isabel has a boy, who will be Prince of Wales, heir to the throne. We are a triumphant family blessed by God with fertility. The former king, Edward, has only three daughters, he has no son and heir, there is no prince in his nursery, there is no-one to bar George from the throne. His beautiful queen, so healthy and so fecund, can only make girls with him. But here we are, entering England a new royal family, a new queen for crowning, and she is with child. A wedding-night baby, conceived in the only night they were together! What a sign of grace! Who can doubt that it is our destiny to take the crown and for my father to see his grandson born a prince and live to be a king?
My father orders us to Warwick Castle, up the dry roads with the brightly coloured leaves whirling around us and the trees a treasury of gold and bronze and copper. The roads are dry and hard after the long summer; we leave a cloud of dust behind us. Isabel leads the way, resting in a litter drawn by white mules. She is not to live in London with her victorious husband. It does not matter if they are parted now since she is already with his child. She is to rest and prepare for her coronation. My father will call a parliament at York that will proclaim George Duke of Clarence as king and she will be queen. There will be a huge coronation in London. She will take the sceptre in her hand and lay it across her big belly, and her coronation gown is to be gathered thickly at the front to emphasise her pregnancy.
Chests of goods come north from the royal wardrobe. Isabel and I open them like children on New Year’s Day in the best chamber of the castle and spill the contents all around the room, seeing the gold lacing and the encrusted stones sparkle in the firelight. ‘He’s done it,’ Isabel says breathlessly, looking at the boxes of furs that Father has sent her. ‘Father has taken her goods. These are her furs.’ She buries her face in the thick pelts, and gives a little awestruck gasp. ‘Smell them! They still smell of her perfume. He has taken her furs, he will have taken her perfume. I shall wear her perfume too. He says I am to have all her furs from the royal wardrobes to trim my gowns. He will send me her jewels, her brocades, her cloth-of-gold dresses to be fitted to me. He has done it.’
‘You can’t ever have doubted that he would?’ I ask, stroking the creamy ermine with the dark spots, which only kings and queens are allowed to wear. Isabel will have all her capes trimmed with it. ‘He defeated King Henry, and holds him prisoner. Now he has defeated King Edward and holds him. Sometimes I think of him, high on the back of his horse, Midnight, riding across the whole country, unbeatable.’
‘Two kings in prison, and a new one on the throne?’ Isabel questions, putting the furs aside. ‘How can it be? How shall the third king be safer than the other two? And what if Father turns against George as he turned against Edward? What if my father’s plans don’t just neglect me but come to oppose me? What if the kingmaker wants a new king after George?’
‘He won’t do that; there is no-one for him but you and George now, and you are carrying the prince, his grandson,’ I say certainly. ‘He’s done all this for you, Isabel. He will put you on the throne and keep you there, and then the next king of England will be a Neville. If he had done it for me I would be so happy. If he had done it for me I would have been the happiest girl in England.’
But Isabel is not happy. My mother and I cannot understand why she is not exultant. We think she is tired in her pregnancy for she will not walk out in the bright cold mornings, and takes no pleasure in the sharp autumnal air. She is anxious, though we and all our loyal household are triumphant, revelling in our rise to power. Then one day at dinner, my father’s Master of Horse, the most trusted and reliable man of his household, is announced. He walks the length of the hall, which falls silent and whispers as he hands a letter to my mother across the high table, and she takes it, surprised that he should come into the hall still dirty from the road, but knowing from his grave face that it is urgent news. She looks at the seal – my father’s standard of the bear and ragged staff – and then, without saying a word, she goes through the door at the back of the dais into the solar, leaving us in silence.
Isabel and I and the dozen ladies of her chamber eat our dinner, trying to look untroubled under the hushed scrutiny of the great hall, but as soon as we can we withdraw to wait in the presence chamber outside the solar, pretending to talk cheerfully among ourselves, horribly aware of the locked door and the silence behind it. If my father were dead, would my mother be weeping? Does she weep? Actually, can she weep? I have never seen my mother weep. I find I am wondering if she has that capacity, or if she is forever hard-faced and dry-eyed.
If my father’s Master of Horse had given her a letter telling us to come to London at once for Izzy’s coronation would she not have burst out through the door with the good news? Does she cry out in joy, I wonder? Have I ever seen her dancing with exultation? The red afternoon sun walks slowly along the tapestried walls lighting up one scene, and then another, and still there is no sound from her room.
Finally, in the evening as it is starting to get dark and the servants are bringing in the candles, the door opens, and my mother comes out, the letter in her hand. ‘Fetch the captain of the castle,’ she says to one of her ladies, ‘and the commander of the personal guard. Command my lord’s steward, and the groom of the chambers, and his Master of Horse.’
She sits in her great chair under the canopy embroidered with her noble crests, and waits for the men to come through the double doors, bow, and stand waiting. Obviously something important has happened but there is no way of telling from her impassive face whether we have triumphed or are ruined.
‘You ask her,’ Isabel mutters to me.
‘No, you.’
We stand with the ladies. Our mother is seated like a queen. She does not order a chair for Isabel, which is odd. It is as if Isabel’s baby is suddenly not the greatest baby that will ever be, as if Isabel herself is not one step from being queen. We wait for the men to come and line up before her to hear her orders.