The Kingmaker's Daughter Page 22

  ‘Are you happy?’ I ask.

  He smiles at the question, which is not one he would ever pose. ‘I am glad to be here.’

  ‘You mean – not at court?’

  I am hoping that he will say something about loving my company and loving being with me and the baby in this, our most beautiful home. We are still newly wed, we are still young, I still have a sense of playing the part of being the lord of the manor and his lady, as if I am not yet old enough or grand enough to take my mother’s place. For Richard it is different. This life has been hard-won; he shoulders the responsibilities of being lord of the North of England. For me, being his wife, living here, in my family home, is a girl’s dream. Often I cannot believe that such a dream has come true.

  But Richard merely says: ‘Court is like a general melee in a jousting tournament these days. The Rivers keep gaining, and George and the other lords keep fighting back. It is a constant unspoken struggle. Not a yard of land nor a coin in my pocket is safe. There is always some kinsman to the queen who thinks they should have it.’

  ‘The king . . .’

  ‘Edward agrees with the last person he spoke to. He laughs and promises anyone anything. He spends his days riding and dancing and gambling and his nights carousing on the streets of London with William Hastings, and even with his stepsons – and I swear that they are not his true companions but are there only to serve their mother. They go along with him, their stepfather, to be her eyes and ears, they lead him into all sorts of bawdy houses and stews, and then I swear they report back to her and tell her everything. He has no friends, only spies and toadies.’

  ‘That’s wrong,’ I say with the stern morality of the young.

  ‘It’s very wrong,’ Richard confirms. ‘A king should set an example to his people. Edward is beloved and the people of London like to see him; but when he is drunk in the streets and chasing women—’ He breaks off. ‘Anyway, these are not matters for your ears.’

  I match my steps to his, and I don’t remind him that I spent much of my girlhood in a garrison town.

  ‘And George seeks advantage at every moment,’ Richard says. ‘He cannot stop himself, he thinks of nothing but the crown he lost to Edward and the fortune he lost to me. His greed is phenomenal, Anne. He just goes on and on trying to get more land, trying to get more offices. He goes around court like a great carp with his mouth wide open gulping in fees. And he lives like a prince himself. God knows how much he spends on his London house buying friends and extending his influence.’

  A skylark rises up from the meadow below the castle and sings as it beats upwards, and then pauses and then mounts again, going up and up as if it would never stop until it gets to heaven. I remember my father telling me to watch, watch carefully, for in a moment it will close its wings and drop silently, drop like a stone to the ground – and where it lands there will be its little down-lined nest and four speckled eggs, arranged point to the centre, for the skylark is a tidy bird, as any candidate for heaven should be.

  We are coming down the winding stair of the gatehouse tower to the main courtyard of the castle as the doors are thrown open and a litter with curtains drawn and twenty outriders comes clattering through the gate.

  ‘Who’s this?’ I ask. ‘A lady? Visiting us?’

  Richard steps forwards and throws a salute at the leader of the guard as if he has been expecting him. ‘All well?’

  The man takes off his bonnet and rubs his sweaty forehead. I recognise James Tyrrell, one of Richard’s most trusted men of the household, Robert Brackenbury behind him. ‘All well,’ he confirms. ‘Nobody followed us, as far as I know, and nobody challenged us on the road.’

  I tug at Richard’s arm. ‘Who is this visitor?’

  ‘You made good time,’ Richard remarks, ignoring me.

  A hand draws back the curtains of the litter, and Sir James turns to help the lady out. She puts aside the rugs that have kept her warm on the journey, and she takes his hand. He stands before her, hiding her face.

  ‘Not your mother?’ I whisper to Richard, horrified at the thought of a formal visit.

  ‘No,’ he says, watching as the lady steps out of the litter and straightens up with a little grunt of discomfort. Sir James steps aside. With a sensation like fainting, I recognise my mother, whom I have not seen for two long years, brought back from the grave, or at any rate from Beaulieu Abbey, stepping out of the litter like a living ghost, turning to smile a ghastly triumphant beam at me, the daughter who left her in prison, the daughter who left her for dead.

  ‘Why is she here?’ I demand.

  We are in the privy chamber, completely alone, the door shut on the company in the great chamber outside who are waiting for us to lead them into dinner, the cooks in the kitchen down below cursing as meat is overdone and the pastries too crisp and brown.

  ‘I rescued her,’ he says calmly. ‘I thought you would be pleased.’

  I break off to look at him. He cannot have thought that I would be pleased. His bland expression tells me that he knows that bringing my mother to me is to stir up a war inside our family that has been raging in furious letters and painful apologies and excuses for two long years. After her last letter when she named my son, her own grandson, a bastard and my husband a thief she has not written to me again. She told me that I had shamed my father and betrayed her. She told me that I was no daughter of hers. She cursed me with a mother’s curse and said that I would live without her blessing and she would go to her grave without saying my name. I did not reply – not so much as a single word. I decided when I married Richard that I had neither mother nor father. One had died on the battlefield, one had deserted me and sent me to a battle alone. Isabel and I call ourselves orphans.

  Until now. ‘Richard, for the love of God, why have you brought her here?’

  Finally, he decides to be honest. ‘George was going to take her,’ he says. ‘I am sure of it. George was going to kidnap her, appeal against the king’s decision to share her fortune between the two of us, demand justice for her. Reclaim it all for her as if he was her knight errant, and then, when she had all the Warwick lands back in her keeping, he was going to take them from her. He was going to keep her in his household like he took you – and he would have got everything that we have, Anne. I had to get her before he did.’

  ‘So to prevent George taking her – you have taken her,’ I say drily. ‘Doing the very crime that you suspect he would have done.’

  He looks at me grimly. ‘When I married you, I said I would protect you. I am protecting your interests now.’

  The mention of our courtship silences me. ‘I didn’t think it would mean this.’

  ‘Neither did I,’ he says. ‘But I promised to protect you and this is what it takes.’

  ‘Where is she going to live?’ My head is whirling. ‘She can’t go into sanctuary again, can she?’

  ‘Here.’

  ‘Here?’ I almost scream at him.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Richard, I am frightened to even see her. She said I was no daughter of hers. She said I would never have a mother’s blessing. She said I should not marry you. She called you things that you would never forgive! She said our son—’ I break off. ‘I won’t repeat it. I won’t think about it.’

  ‘I don’t need to hear it,’ he says cheerfully. ‘And I don’t need to forgive her. And you don’t need her blessing. She will live here as our guest. You need never see her if you don’t want to. She can dine in her rooms, she can pray in her own chapel. We have enough space here, God knows. We can give her a household of her own. She need not trouble you.’

  ‘How can she not trouble me? She is my mother! She is my mother who has set her face against me. She said that she would go to her grave without saying my name!’

  ‘Think of her as your prisoner.’

  I sink into a chair, staring at him. ‘My mother is my prisoner?’

  ‘She was a prisoner at Beaulieu Abbey. Now she is a prisoner here. She is never g
oing to regain her fortune, she lost that when she claimed sanctuary at the moment that she heard of your father’s death. She chose then to leave you to whatever danger the battle would bring. Now she has the life that she chose then. She can abide by her choice. She is a pauper, she is in prison. It just happens that she is a prisoner here rather than in Beaulieu. She might like that. She might prefer it here. This was her home, after all.’

  ‘She came here as a bride, it was her family home,’ I say quietly. ‘Every stone in every wall will speak to her of her rights.’

  ‘Well then . . .’

  ‘It’s still hers.’ I look at his young handsome determined face, and realise that nothing I say will make any difference. ‘We live here like thieves and now the true owner will be watching us collect her rents, claiming her dues, sheltered by her walls, living under her roof.’

  He shrugs and I break off. I knew that he was a man of abrupt decision, a man who was capable – just like his brother – of powerful, rapid acts. The York boys spent their childhood in rebellion against the king, watching their father and then their brother risking everything at war. All the York brothers are capable of dauntless courage and stubborn endurance. I knew he was a man who would follow his own interests, without scruples. But I did not know that he was a man who could arrest his own mother-in-law and hold her, against her wishes, steal her lands from her as she sleeps under his roof. I knew that my husband was a hard man, but I did not know that he was granite.

  ‘How long will she live here?’

  ‘Till she dies,’ he says blandly.

  I think of King Henry in the Tower, who died the very night that the York brothers came home victorious from Tewkesbury, determined to end his line. I think of him when the three of them quietly walked into his darkened room as he slept. I think of him sleeping under their protection and never waking again; and I open my mouth to ask him a question, and close it again, saying nothing. I realise that I am afraid to ask my young husband how long he thinks that my mother may live.

  Reluctantly, sick in my belly, I go to the rooms that have been allocated to my mother, that evening, after dinner. They have served her the best dishes from the evening meal, and presented them to her on one knee, with all the respect that a countess should receive. She has eaten well; they are taking out the empty plates as I come in. Richard has ruled that she shall be housed in the northwest tower, as far away from us as it is possible to be. There is no bridge from her corner tower to the main keep; if she were allowed out of her rooms, she would have to go all the way down the stairs and through the door to get into the courtyard, cross the courtyard, and then go up the stairs to the keep to get to the great hall. There are guards at every doorway. She will never visit us without invitation. She will never leave the tower without permission. For the rest of her life she will have a blinkered view. From her windows she can see only the roofs of the little town, the wide grey skies, the empty landscape and down to the dark moat.

  I go in and curtsey to her – she is my mother and I have to show her respect – but then I stand before her, my chin up. I fear that I look like a defiant child. But I am only just seventeen and I am terrified of my mother’s authority.

  ‘Your husband intends to hold me as a prisoner,’ she says coldly. ‘Are you, my own daughter, serving him as his gaoler?’

  ‘You know I cannot disobey him.’

  ‘You should not disobey me.’

  ‘You left me,’ I say, driven to speak out. ‘You left me with Margaret of Anjou and she led me to a terrible battle and to defeat, and to the death of my husband. I was little more than a child and you abandoned me on a battlefield.’

  ‘You paid the price of overweening ambition,’ she says. ‘Your father’s ambition, which destroyed us. Now you are following another ambitious man, like a dog, just as you followed your father. You wanted to be Queen of England. You would not know your place.’

  ‘My ambition didn’t take me very far,’ I protest. ‘Isabel imprisoned me, my own sister!’ I can feel my anger and my tears welling up together. ‘There was nobody to defend me. You let Isabel and George hold me against my will. You put yourself safely in sanctuary and you left me to be picked up from the battlefield! Anybody could have taken me, anything could have happened to me.’

  ‘You let your husband and Isabel’s husband steal my fortune from me.’

  ‘How could I stop them?’

  ‘Did you try?’

  I am silent. I did not try.

  ‘Return my lands to me, and release me,’ my mother says. ‘Tell your husband he must do this. Tell the king.’

  ‘Lady Mother – I cannot,’ I say weakly.

  ‘Then tell Isabel.’

  ‘She can’t either. She is expecting a baby, she’s not even at court. And anyway – the king does not hear petitions from Isabel and me. He would never listen to us in preference to his brothers.’

  ‘I have to be free,’ my mother says, and for a moment her voice trembles. ‘I cannot die in prison. You have to set me free.’

  I shake my head. ‘I can’t,’ I say. ‘There’s no point even asking me, Lady Mother. I am powerless. I can’t do anything for you.’

  For a moment her eyes blaze at me; she can still frighten me. But this time, I hold her gaze and I shrug my shoulders. ‘We lost the battle,’ I say. ‘I am married to my saviour. I have no power, nor does Isabel, nor do you. There is nothing I can do for you if it goes against my husband’s will. You will have to reconcile yourself, as I do, as Isabel does, to being the defeated.’

  FARLEIGH HUNGERFORD CASTLE, SOMERSET, 14 AUGUST 1473

  It is a relief beyond measuring to leave my home with the silent brooding presence of my mother in the northwest tower, and go to Isabel for the birth of her baby in Norton St Philip, Somerset. Isabel is in confinement when I arrive and I join her in the shadowed rooms. The baby comes early and the two days of labour do not give her great pain, though by the end she is very tired. The midwife hands the baby to me. ‘A girl,’ she says.

  ‘A girl!’ I exclaim. ‘Look, Iz, you’ve got such a pretty girl!’

  She barely glances at the perfect face of the baby, though her face is as smooth and as pale as a pearl, and her eyelashes are dark. ‘Oh, a girl,’ she says dully.

  ‘Better luck next time,’ says the midwife drily, as she bundles up the bloodstained linen and rubs her hands on her soiled apron, and looks around for a glass of ale.

  ‘But this is the best of luck already!’ I protest. ‘See how beautiful she is? Iz, do look at her – she’s not even crying!’

  The tiny baby opens her mouth and yawns, and she is as delightful as a kitten. Iz does not stretch out her arms for her. ‘George was determined on a boy,’ she says shortly. ‘He will not thank me for this. He will see it as a failure, as my failure.’

  ‘Perhaps a boy next time?’

  ‘And She never stops giving birth,’ Isabel says irritably. ‘George says that her health must break down soon. They have a baby almost every year. Surely one of them will kill her in childbirth?’

  I cross myself against her ill-will. ‘Almost always girls,’ I say to console her.

  ‘One boy already, which is all she needs for a Prince of Wales, and another baby due this very month. What if she is carrying a second boy? Then she will have two sons to inherit the throne that their father usurped. And George will be pushed another step away from the crown. How will George ever get the throne if she has more sons?’

  ‘Hush,’ I say instantly. The midwife has her back to us, the wet nurse is coming into the birthing chamber, the maid is clearing away the linen and turning down the sheets of the big bed, but still I am afraid that we may be overheard. ‘Hush, Isabel. Don’t speak of such things. Especially not in front of people.’

  ‘Why not? George was Edward’s heir. That was their agreement. But She goes on having children, as if She would never stop, like a farrowing pig. Why would God give her a boy? Why would He make her fertile? Why does He not rain
down pestilence on her and blow her and her baby to hell?’

  I am so shocked at her sudden malice so soon after childbirth that I say nothing. I turn away from her to hand the baby to the wet nurse, who settles down in a rocking chair and takes the baby to her breast and coos over her dark downy head.

  As I help Isabel into the big bed, my face is grim. ‘These are not your thoughts, nor George’s, I know,’ I say firmly. ‘For it is treason to speak against the king and his family. You are tired from the birth and drunk on the birthing ale. Iz, you must never say such things, not even to me.’

  She beckons me close so that she can whisper in my ear. ‘Do you not think that our father would want George to challenge his brother? Do you not know that our father would think that the very gates of heaven were opening if George were to take the crown and make me queen? And then your husband would be the next heir to the throne. This baby is a girl, she counts for nothing. If George took the throne, then Richard would come next. Have you forgotten that the one thing our father wanted above everything else in the world was to see one of us as Queen of England and his grandson as Prince of Wales? Can you imagine how proud and happy he would be if he saw me as queen and you as queen after me, and your son as king after us both?’

  I pull away from her. ‘It cost him his life,’ I say harshly. ‘He rode out to his death. And our mother is imprisoned, and you and I all but orphaned.’

  ‘If George were to win then that would be the only thing that made it all worth while,’ she says stubbornly. ‘If George were to claim the throne then Father would be at peace.’