She buries her face in her hands and weeps as if she could never stop. I glance at my ladies. We are so shocked to see the duchess like this that we all stand in a helpless circle around the grieving mother.
‘My favourite son, my own darling,’ she whispers to herself. ‘And he has to die.’
I don’t know what to do. I put my hand gently on her shoulder. ‘Will you not take a glass of something, Your Grace?’
She looks up at me, her beautiful old face ravaged with grief. ‘He has chosen to be drowned in malmsey wine,’ she says.
‘What?’
She nods. ‘That’s why I didn’t want to drink it. I will never touch it again as long as I live. I won’t have it in my house. They will clear the cellar of it today.’
I am horrified. ‘Why would he do such a thing?’
She laughs, a bitter dry sound that peals like a carillon of misery in the stone-walled room. ‘It is his last gesture: to make Edward treat him, to make Edward pay for his drink. To make a mockery of the king’s justice, to drink deep of the queen’s favourite wine. He shows it is her doing, this is her poison for him, as it was her poison that killed Isabel. He makes a mockery of the trial, he makes a mockery of his death sentence. He makes a mockery of his death.’
I turn to the window and look out. ‘My sister’s children will be orphans,’ I say. ‘Edward, and Margaret.’
‘Orphans and paupers,’ Duchess Cecily says acutely, drying her cunning old face.
I look back at her. ‘What?’
‘Their father will die for treason. A traitor’s lands are taken from him. Who do you think gets their lands?’
‘The king,’ I say dully. ‘The king. Which is to say the queen – and her endless family – of course.’
We are a house in deep mourning but we cannot wear blue. George, the handsome irrepressible duke, is dead. He died as he requested, drowned in a barrel of the queen’s favourite wine. It was his last bitter brilliant gesture of defiance to the woman who ruined his house. She herself never drank the wine again, as if she feared that she would taste sputum from his gasping lungs in the sweetness. I wish that I could see George in purgatory and tell him that he achieved that at least. He spoiled the queen’s appetite for wine. Would to God that he could have drowned her too.
I go to court and wait for my chance to speak to the king. I sit in the queen’s rooms with her ladies and I talk to them of the weather, and the likelihood of snow. I admire their fine lacework for which the queen herself drew the pattern, and I remark on her artistry. When she speaks to me briefly, I reply with pleasant courtesy. I don’t let her see from my face or from any gesture, not even the turn of my hand or the set of my feet in my leather slippers, that I regard her as a murderer of my sister by poison, and my brother-in-law by politics. She is a killer and perhaps even a witch, and she has taken from me all the people that I love, except my husband and my son. I don’t doubt that she would rob me of them but for my husband’s position with the king. I will never forgive her.
When the king comes in, smiling and cheerful, he greets the ladies by name as usual and when he comes to me and kisses me as a brother on both cheeks I say quietly: ‘Your Grace, I would ask you a favour.’
At once, he glances over to her and I see their swift exchange of looks. She half-rises to her feet as if she would intercept me; but I was prepared for this. I don’t expect to get anything without the witch’s permission. ‘I should like the wardship of my sister’s children,’ I say quickly. ‘They are at Warwick in the nursery there. Margaret is four, Edward nearly three. I loved Isabel dearly, I should like to care for her children.’
‘Of course,’ Edward says easily. ‘But you know they have no fortunes?’
Oh yes, I know that, I think. For you robbed George of everything he had gained by accusing him of treason. If their wardship was worth anything your wife would already have claimed it. If they had been wealthy she would have the marriage contract already drawn up for their betrothal to one of her own children. ‘I will provide for them,’ I say.
Richard, coming towards me, nods his assent. ‘We will provide for them.’
‘I will raise them at Middleham with their cousin my son,’ I say. ‘If Your Grace will allow it. It is the greatest favour you could do me. I loved my sister and I promised her that if anything happened to her I would care for her children.’
‘Oh, did she think she might die?’ the queen asks, with pretend concern, coming up to the king and slipping her hand in his arm, her beautiful face solemn and concerned. ‘Did she fear childbirth?’
I think of Isabel warning me that one day I would hear that she had died suddenly and that on that day I might know that she had been poisoned by this beautiful woman who stands before me in her arrogance and her power, and dares to tease me with the death of my sister. ‘Childbirth is always dangerous,’ I say quietly, denying the truth of Isabel’s murder. ‘As everyone knows. We all enter our confinement with a prayer.’
The queen holds my gaze for a moment as if she might challenge me, see if she can drive me into saying something treasonous or rebellious. I can see my husband tense as if readying himself for an attack, and he draws a little closer to his brother as if to take his attention from the she-devil who holds his arm. Then she smiles her lovely smile and looks up at her husband in her familiar seductive way. ‘I think we should let the Clarence children live with their aunt, do you not, Your Grace?’ she asks sweetly. ‘Perhaps it would comfort them all in their loss. And I am sure that my sister Anne here will be a good guardian to her little niece and nephew.’
‘I agree,’ the king says. He nods at Richard. ‘I am glad to grant your wife a favour.’
‘Let me know how they go on,’ the queen says to me as she turns away. ‘What a sadness that her baby died. What was his name?’
‘Richard,’ I say softly.
‘Did she call him after your father?’ she asks, naming the murderer of her father, of her brother, the accuser of her mother, her lifelong enemy.
‘Yes,’ I say, not knowing what else I can say.
‘What a pity,’ she repeats.
BAYNARD’S CASTLE, LONDON, MARCH 1478
I think I have won. That evening and in the days after I silently celebrate my victory. I celebrate without words, without even a smile. I have lost my sister; but her children will be in my keeping and I will love them as my own. I will tell them that their mother was a beauty and their father was a hero, and that Isabel put them into my keeping.
I write to Warwick Castle and tell them that as soon as the roads are clear enough for the journey the two children shall go to Middleham. Weeks later, delayed by snow and storms, I get a reply from the castle to tell me that Margaret and Edward have set off, well-wrapped in two litters with their nursemaids. A week later I hear from Middleham that they have safely arrived. I have Isabel’s children behind the thick walls of our best castle, and I swear that I will keep them safe.
I go to my husband while he is hearing petitions in his presence chamber in Baynard’s Castle. I wait patiently while the dozens of people present their applications and their grievances and he listens carefully and deals justly with each one. Richard is a great lord. He understands, as my father did, that each man has to be allowed to have his say, that each one will give his fealty if he can be sure that a lord will repay him with protection. He knows that wealth is not in land but in the men and women who work the land. Our wealth and our power depend upon the love of the people who serve us. If they will do anything for Richard – as they would do anything for my father – then he has an army on call, for whatever need. This is true power, this is real wealth.