Her letter is not all boasting, for she writes one word at the end of the letter to show that she has not forgotten her fear of the queen.
Take care what you eat at the Christmas feast, my sister. You know what I mean – Iz
The door of my presence chamber opens and Richard comes in with his half-dozen friends, to escort me and my ladies to dinner. I stand and smile at him.
‘Good news?’ Richard asks, looking at the letter on the table beside me.
‘Oh yes!’ I say, holding my smile. ‘Very.’
WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON, CHRISTMAS DAY 1476
It is the season of Christmas and the royal family will blaze in jewels and the bright colours of the new fabrics that they have bought in, at the price of a small fortune, from Burgundy. Edward plays the part of a king in a swirl of cloth of gold and colour and the queen is always at his side as if she were born to the place – and not the lucky upstart she truly is.
We wake early for mass in the king’s chapel on this most holy day of the year. I have a great wooden bath, lined with the finest linen, rolled into my bedroom before the fire and the maids bring jugs of hot water and pour it around my shoulders as I wash my hair and my body with the rose-petal soap that Richard bought from the Moorish traders for me.
They wrap me in hot sheets while they lay out my gown for the day. I will wear deep red velvet trimmed with marten fur, a dark shiny pelt as good as anything the queen has. I have a new headdress that sits snugly on my head with coils of gold wire over my ears. They comb my hair dry as I sit before the warmth of the fire and then plait it and twist it up under the headdress. I have a new linen shift embroidered this summer by my ladies under my direction, and from the treasure room they bring my box and I pick out dark red rubies to match the gown.
When Richard comes to my presence chamber to accompany me to mass he is dressed in black, his preferred colour. He looks handsome and happy and as I greet him I feel the familiar pulse of desire. Perhaps tonight he will come to my room and tonight we will make another child. What could be a better day than the day when the Christ-child was born, to make another heir for the dukedom of Gloucester?
He offers me his arm and the knights of his household, all richly dressed, escort my ladies to the king’s chapel. We line up and wait, the king often keeps us waiting; but then there is a rustle and a little gasp from some of the ladies as he comes in, dressed in white and silver, and leading Her. She is in silver and white like him and she gleams in the shadows of the royal chapel as if she were lit by the moon. Her pale golden hair just shows beneath her crown, her neck is bare to the top of her gown, which is cut low and square and veiled with the finest lace. Behind them come their children, first the young Prince of Wales, six years old now, taller every time he comes to court, dressed to match his father, and then the nursemaid holding the hand of the little prince, still in his baby clothes of white and silver lace, then comes Princess Elizabeth dressed in white and silver like her parents, solemn with an ivory missal in her hand, smiling to one side and the other, poised and precocious as always, and behind her the rest of them, beautiful, royal, richly dressed little girls, all three of them and the new baby. I cannot watch them without envy.
I make sure that I am smiling, as the court smiles, to see this exquisite royal family walk by. The queen’s grey gaze flickers over me and I feel the chill of her regard, and the astute measurement, as if she knows that I am envious, as if she knows that I am fearful; and then the priest comes in and I can kneel and close my eyes and spare myself the sight of them.
When we get back to our own presence chamber there is a man waiting outside the closed double doors, travel-stained with his wet and muddy cape thrown on the stone windowsill. Our household guard bars the door to him, waiting for our return.
‘What’s this?’ Richard asks.
He drops to one knee, and holds out a letter. I see a red wax seal. Richard breaks it, and reads the few lines on the one page. I see his face darken and then he glances at me and back down at the page.
‘What is it?’ I cannot say what I fear – I think at once with horror that it might be a letter from Middleham about our son. ‘What is it, Richard? My lord? I pray you . . .’ I snatch a breath. ‘Tell me. Tell me quickly.’
He does not answer me at once. He nods over his shoulder to one of his household knights. ‘Wait there. Hold the messenger, I’ll want to see him. See he speaks to no-one.’
Me, he takes by the arm and walks through our presence chamber, through my privy chamber and into my bedroom where no-one will disturb us.
‘What?’ I whisper. ‘Richard, for God’s sake – what is it? Is it our boy, Edward?’
‘It’s your sister,’ he says. His quiet voice makes it sound almost like a question, as if he cannot believe what he has read himself. ‘It’s about your sister.’
‘Isabel?’
‘Yes. My love – I don’t know how to tell you – George wrote to me, this is his letter, he told me to tell you; but I don’t know how to tell you . . .’
‘What? What about her?’
‘My love, my poor love – she’s dead. George writes that she is dead.’
For a moment, I cannot hear the words. Then I hear them, as if they are clanging like a bell right here, in my bedroom, where only two hours ago I was dressing in my gown and choosing my rubies. ‘Isabel?’
‘Yes. She’s dead, George says.’
‘But how? She was well, she wrote to me, she said it was an easy labour. I had her letter, full of self-praise. She was well, she was very well, she told me to come and see . . .’
He pauses, as if he has an answer, but does not want to put words to it. ‘I don’t know how. That’s why I’m going to speak with the messenger.’
‘Was she ill?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did she have childbed fever? Did she bleed?’
‘George doesn’t say that.’
‘What does he say?’
For a moment, I think he is going to refuse to answer me, but then he spreads the letter open, smoothing it flat on the table, and gives it to me, watching my face as I read the words.
22 December 1476
Brother and Sister Anne,
My beloved wife Isabel died this morning, may God keep her soul. There is no doubt in my mind that she was poisoned by an agent of the queen. Keep your wife safe, Richard, and keep yourself safe. There is no doubt in my mind that we are all in danger from the false family that our brother the king has brought about. My baby son yet lives. I pray for you and yours. Burn this.
Richard takes the letter from my hand and, leaning towards the fire, pushes it into the red embers and stands over it as the paper curls black and then suddenly flares into flame.
‘She knew it would happen.’ I find I am shaking, from my fingertips to my feet, as if the letter has frozen me with a whistle of an icy gale. ‘She said it would happen.’
Richard takes hold of me and pushes me to sit on the bed as my knees give way beneath me. ‘George said so too, but I wouldn’t listen to him,’ he says tersely.
‘She said the queen had a spy in her house, and that she has a spy in our house too.’
‘I don’t doubt that. That’s almost certainly true. The queen trusts no-one, and she pays servants for intelligence. So do we all. But why would she poison Isabel?’
‘For revenge,’ I say miserably. ‘Because she has our names on a scrap of paper in an enamelled box hidden among her jewels.’
‘What?’
‘Isabel knew, but I wouldn’t listen. She said the queen has sworn to be avenged on the murderers of her father – that would be our father. Isabel said she had written our names in blood on a scrap of paper and kept them hidden. Isabel said that one day I would hear she was dead and she would have been poisoned.’