‘Mistress Grey,’ I correct him, smiling.
NOTTINGHAM CASTLE, MARCH 1484
We arrive at Nottingham Castle in the evening just as the setting sun is making the towers black against a sky of peach and gold. There is a fanfare from the walls of the castle as we approach and the guard spills out of the guardhouse to line the path to the drawbridge. Richard and I ride side by side, acknowledging the cheers of the soldiers and the applause of the people.
I am happy as I dismount from my horse and make my way to the new queen’s apartments. I can hear my ladies in waiting chattering as they follow me, but I cannot distinguish the voices of the Rivers girls. I think, not for the first time, that I must learn not to look for them, I must work to diminish their effect on me. If I could teach myself to care nothing about them, one way or another, then I would not look to see if Richard is noticing them, or if the oldest girl, Elizabeth, is smiling at him.
We have been at Nottingham for several days, hunting in the wonderful forests, eating the venison we kill, when a messenger comes to my rooms one evening. He looks so exhausted from his ride and so grave that I know that something terrible has happened. His hand, as he holds out the letter, trembles.
‘What is it?’ I ask him, but he shakes his head as if he cannot tell me in words. I glance around and find Elizabeth looking steadily at me, and for a cold moment I think of her and her mother cursing the line of whoever killed the princes in the tower. I try to smile at her, but I can feel my lips stretch over my teeth and know that I am grimacing.
At once she steps forwards, and I see that her young face is filled with pity. ‘Can I help you?’ is all she says.
‘No, no, just a message from my home,’ I say. I think, perhaps my mother has died and they have written to me. Perhaps one of the other children, Margaret or Teddy, has taken a tumble from their pony and broken an arm. I realise I am holding the letter and not opening it. The young woman is looking at me, waiting for me to do so. I have an odd fancy that she knows, she knows already what it is going to say, and I look round at the circle of my ladies who have one by one realised that I am clutching a letter from home, too afraid to open it, and they fall silent, and gather round.
‘Probably nothing,’ I say into the quietness of the room. The messenger lifts his head and looks at me as if he would say something, and then puts his hand over his eyes as if the spring sunshine is too bright, and drops his head again.
I can delay no longer. I put my finger under the sealing wax and it comes easily from the paper. I unfold it and see that it is signed by the physician. He has written only four lines.
Your Grace,
I deeply regret to tell you that your son, Prince Edward, has died this night of a fever, which we could not cool. We did everything we could do, and we are all deeply grieved. I will pray for you and His Grace the king in your sorrow.
Charles Rhymner
I look up but I can see nothing. I realise my eyes are filled with tears and I blink them away but am still blinded. ‘Send for the king,’ I say. Someone touches my hand as I grip the letter and I feel the warmth of Elizabeth’s fingers. I cannot stop myself thinking that the heir to the throne now is Teddy, Isabel’s funny little boy. And after him, this girl. I take my hand from hers so she cannot touch me.
In moments Richard is there before me, kneeling to me so that he can look into my face. ‘What is it?’ he whispers. ‘They said you had a letter.’
‘It is Edward,’ I say. I can hear my grief about to burst out, but I take a breath and tell him the worst news in the world. ‘He is dead of a fever. We have lost our son.’
The days go by but I cannot speak. I go to the chapel but I cannot pray. The court is dressed in blue so dark that it is almost black and nobody plays games, or goes hunting, or plays music, or laughs. We are a court that has fallen under an enchantment of grief, we are struck dumb. Richard appears ten years older; I have not looked in my own mirror to see the marks of sorrow on my face. I can’t care. I can’t find it in me to care how I look. They dress me in the morning as if I were a doll, and at night they drag the gowns off me so that I can go to bed and lie in silence and feel the tears seeping out from my closed eyelids to wet the linen pillow.
I feel so ashamed that I let him die, as if it were my fault or that I could have done something. I feel ashamed that I did not breed a strong boy, like Isabel did, or like the handsome Woodville boys who vanished from the Tower. I feel ashamed that I had only one boy, only one precious heir, only one to carry the great weight of Richard’s triumph. We had only one prince, not two, and now he has gone.
We leave Nottingham for Middleham Castle in a rush, at once, as if by getting to our home we will find our son as we left him. When we get there we find the little body in the coffin in the chapel, and the two other children kneeling beside it, lost without their cousin, lost without the routine of the household. Margaret comes into my arms and whispers: ‘I am so sorry, I am so sorry,’ as if she, a little ten-year-old girl, should have saved him.
I cannot reassure her that I don’t blame her. I have no reassurance for anyone. I have no words for anyone. Richard rules that the children shall now go to live at Sheriff Hutton. Neither of us will ever want to come to Middleham, ever again. We have a small funeral and see the coffin go into the darkness of the vault. I feel no peace after we have prayed for his soul, and paid the priest to pray for him twice daily. We shall create a chantry for his little innocent soul. I feel no peace, I feel nothing. I think I will feel nothing forever.
We leave Middleham as soon as we can, and go to Durham, where I pray for my son in the great cathedral. It makes no difference. We go to Scarborough and I look at the great waves on a stormy sea and think of Isabel losing her first baby and how losing a baby in childbirth is nothing – nothing – to losing a son grown. We go back to York. I don’t care where we are. Everywhere people look at me as if they are puzzling about what they can say. They need not trouble. There is nothing to say. I have lost my father in battle, my sister to Elizabeth Woodville’s spy, my brother-in-law to Elizabeth Woodville’s executioner, my nephew to her poisoner, and now my son to her curse.
The days grow brighter and warmer and when they throw the gown over my head in the morning it is made of silk rather than wool. When they walk me into dinner and sit me like a puppet at the high table they bring me spring lamb and fresh fruits. It grows noisier at dinner, and one day the musicians play again, for the first time since the letter came. I see Richard glance sideways at me to see if I mind, and I see him recoil from the blankness of my face. I don’t mind. I don’t mind anything. They can play a hornpipe if they like; nothing matters to me any more.
That night he comes to my room. He does not speak to me, but folds me in his arms and holds me tightly to him, as if the pain of two people can be lessened by putting two broken hearts close to one another. It does not help. Now I feel that my bedroom is the centre of grief, as we lie side by side in our pain, instead of at either ends of the castle.
Early in the morning I wake as he tries to make love to me. I lie like a stone beneath him and say nothing and do nothing. I know he will be thinking that we have to conceive another child; but I cannot believe that such a blessing could be given. After ten years of barrenness? How should a son come to me now that I feel I am dead, when a second son did not come when I was filled with hope and love? No, we were given one son and now he has gone.
The Rivers girls have tactfully left court to visit their mother and I am glad that I don’t have to see them – three of her five beautiful daughters. I cannot think about anything but the curse that Richard heard them make, mother and daughter, when they swore that whoever had taken their son and heir would lose his own. I wonder if this is proof that Robert Brackenbury took the hint I gave him, and crushed those two handsome healthy boys in their bedding, to give their title to my poor lost son. I wonder if this is proof that my husband has looked me in the face and lied to me with utter conviction and without shame. Can he have had them killed without telling me? Can he have had them killed and denied it to me? Would he have told such a lie to their mother? Can her power have seen through his lie and taken my son in revenge? Is not a witch’s curse the only explanation for Edward’s death – dead in springtime, dead just as he came through the dangerous years of childhood?