The Red Queen Read online

  He waits; he hardly dares to tell me what he truly wants. The servant comes in with some little pies, and we take them with our wine, thoughtfully, as if we had met together to dine and were savoring the meal.

  “I do fear for the lives of the princes,” I say. “Since the attempt to free them came so close, I cannot help but think that Richard may send them far away, or worse. Surely, he cannot tolerate the risk of them staying in London, a center for every plot? Everyone must think that Richard will destroy them. Perhaps he will take them to his lands in the north and they will not survive it. Prince Richard has a weak chest, I fear.”

  “If he were, God forbid, to kill them in secret, then the Rivers line would be over, and we would be free of them,” the duke says, as if this has occurred to him now, for the first time.

  I nod. “And then, any rebellion that destroyed Richard would leave the throne open for a new king.”

  He raises his face from the glow of the fire and looks at me with a bright, open hopefulness. “Do you mean your son, Henry Tudor? Do you think of him, my lady? Would he take up the challenge and restore Lancaster to the throne of England?”

  I don’t hesitate for a moment. “We have done badly enough with York. Henry is the direct Lancaster heir. And he has waited for his chance to return to his country and claim his birthright for all his life.”

  “Does he have arms?”

  “He can raise thousands,” I promise. “The Duke of Brittany has promised his support—he has more than a dozen ships, more than four thousand men, an army at his command. His name alone can turn out Wales, and his uncle Jasper would be his commander. If you and he were to unite to fight against Richard, I think you would be unbeatable. And if the dowager queen were to summon her affinity, thinking she was fighting for her sons, we could not fail.”

  “But when she found out that her sons were dead?”

  “As long as she found it out after the battle, it would make no difference to us.”

  He nods. “And then she would just retire.”

  “My son Henry is betrothed to marry the Princess Elizabeth,” I remark. “Elizabeth Woodville would still be mother of the queen; that would be enough for her, if her sons were gone.”

  He beams as he suddenly understands my plan. “And she thinks she has secured you!” he exclaims. “That your ambitions are one with hers.”

  Yes, I think. And you too think that you have secured me, and that I will bring in my son to kill Richard for you. That I will use my precious Henry as a weapon for such a one as you, to give you a safe passage to the throne.

  “And if,” he looks pained, “if, God forbid, your son Henry was to fall in battle?”

  “Then you would be king,” I say. “I have only one son, and he is the only heir to my house. No one could deny that if Henry were dead, then your claim to the throne would be supreme. And if he lives, then you would have his gratitude and whatever lands you wanted to command. Certainly, I can promise for him that all the Bohun lands would be restored to you. The two of you would have brought peace at last to England and rid the country of a tyrant. Henry would be king, and you would be the greatest duke. And if he died without issue, you would be his heir.”

  He slips from his stool and kneels to me, holds his hands up to me in the old gesture of fealty. I smile down at him, this beautiful young man, as handsome as a player in a masque, mouthing words that surely no one could believe, offering loyalty where he seeks only his own good. “Will you take my fealty for your son?” he asks, his eyes shining. “Will you accept my oath and swear that he will join with me against Richard? Us two together?”

  I take his hands in my cool clasp. “On behalf of my son, Henry Tudor, the rightful King of England, I accept your fealty,” I say solemnly. “And you, and he, and Elizabeth the dowager queen together will overthrow the Boar and bring joy back to England once more.”

  I ride away from Buckingham’s dinner feeling oddly unhappy, not at all as a woman in triumph. I should feel exultant: he thinks he has trapped my son into arming and fighting for his rebellion, and actually, we have ensnared him. The task I set myself is accomplished; God’s will is done. And yet … and yet … I suppose it is the thought of those two boys in the Tower, saying their prayers and climbing into their big bed, hoping that tomorrow they will see their mother, trusting that their uncle will release them, not knowing that there is a powerful alliance now of myself, my son, and the Duke of Buckingham who wait to hear of their deaths, and will not wait for much longer.

  SEPTEMBER 1483

  At last I have come into my own. I have inherited the kingdom I dreamed of when I prayed to Joan the Maid and wanted to be her, the only girl to see that her kingdom should rise, the only woman to know, from God Himself, what should be done. My rooms in our London house are my secret headquarters of rebellion; every day messengers come and go with news of arming, asking for money, collecting their weapons and smuggling them secretly out of the city. My table of work, which was once piled with books of devotion for my studies, is now covered with carefully copied maps, and hidden in its drawers are codes for secret messages. My ladies approach their husbands, their brothers, or their fathers, swear them to secrecy, and bind them to our cause. My friends in the church and in the city and on my lands link one to another and reach out to the country in a web of conspiracy. I judge who shall be trusted and who shall not, and I approach them myself. Three times a day I go down on my knees to pray, and my God is the God of righteous battles.

  Dr. Lewis goes between me and the Queen Elizabeth almost daily, as she in her turn draws out those still loyal to the York princes, the great men and loyal servants of the old royal household, and her brothers and her son are everywhere in secret in the counties around London calling out the York affinity, while I summon those who will fight for Lancaster. My steward Reginald Bray goes everywhere, and my beloved friend John Morton as house guest and prisoner is in daily contact with Henry Stafford, the Duke of Buckingham. He tells the duke of our recruiting and reports back to me that the thousands of men that Buckingham can command are secretly arming. To my own people, I give the assurance that Henry will marry the Princess Elizabeth of York, and unite the country with his victory. This brings them out for me. But the Yorks and the common people care nothing for my Henry; they are anxious only to set the princes free. They are desperate for the freedom of their boys, they are united against Richard, they would join with any ally—the devil himself—as long as they can free the York boys.

  The Duke of Buckingham seems to be true to my plan, though I don’t doubt he has one of his own, and promises he will gather up his men and Tudor loyalists through the marches of Wales, cross the Severn, and enter England from the west. At the same time my son is to land in the south and march his forces north. The queen’s men will come out of all the southern counties, where her strength lies, and Richard, still in the north, will have to scramble for recruits as he marches south to greet not one but three armies and choose the place of his death.

  Jasper and Henry raise their troops from the prisons and streets of the worst cities in northern Europe. They will be paid fighters and desperate prisoners who are released only to go to war under the Tudor banner. We don’t expect them to stand against more than one charge, and they will have no loyalty and no sense of a true cause. But their numbers alone will take the battle. Jasper has raised five thousand of them, truly five thousand, and is drilling them into a force that would strike terror into any country.

  Richard, ignorant, far away in York, delighting in the loyalty of that city for their favorite son, has no idea of the plans that we are forming in the very heart of his own capital, but he is astute enough to know that Henry poses a danger. He is trying to persuade King Louis of France into an alliance that would include the handing over of my boy. He is hoping to make a truce with Scotland; he knows that my Henry will be collecting troops; he knows of the betrothal, and that my son is in alliance with the Queen Elizabeth, and he knows that they will
either come on the autumn winds this year, or wait for spring. He knows this, and he must fear it. He doesn’t know where I stand in this; whether I am the loyal wife of a loyal retainer whom he has bought with fees and positions, or whether I am the mother of a son with a claim to the throne. He must watch, he must wait, he must be filled with wondering.

  What he doesn’t know yet is that a great shadow has fallen over his hopes and his security; what he does not know is that his greatest comrade and his first friend, the Duke of Buckingham, who put him on the throne, who swore fealty to him, who was to be bone of his bone and blood of his blood, another brother as trustworthy as those of the York affinity, is turned against him and has sworn to bring his destruction. Poor Richard, unknowing, innocent, celebrates in York, revels in the pride and love of his northern friends. What he does not know is that his greatest friend of all, the man he loves as a brother, has become indeed like a brother: as false to him as any envious rivalrous brother of York.

  My husband, my lord Thomas Stanley, on a three-day leave from his duties at Richard’s court at York, comes to me in the evening, in the hour before dinner, and waves my women from the room, without a word of courtesy to them or to me. I raise an eyebrow at his rudeness and wait.

  “I have no time for anything but this question,” he snaps. “The king has sent me on this private errand, though God knows he shows little sign of trusting me. I have to be back with him the day after tomorrow, and he eyes me as if he would have me under arrest again. He knows there is a rebellion in the making; he suspects you and therefore me too, but he doesn’t know whom he can trust. Tell me this one thing: Have you ordered the deaths of the princes? And is it done?”

  I glance at the closed door and rise to my feet. “Husband, why do you ask?”

  “Because my land agent today asked me were they dead. My chief of horse asked me had I heard the news. And my vintner told me that half the country believe it is so. Half the country think they are dead, and most of them think that Richard did it.”

  I conceal my pleasure. “But really, how would I do such a thing?”

  He puts his clenched fist under my face and snaps his fingers. “Wake up,” he says rudely. “You are talking to me, not to one of your acolytes. You have dozens of spies, a massive fortune at your own command, and now the Duke of Buckingham’s men to call on, as well as your own guard. If you want it done, it can be done. So is it done? Is it over?”

  “Yes,” I say quietly. “It is done. It is over. The boys are dead.”

  He is silent for a moment, almost as if he were saying a prayer for their little souls. Then he asks: “Have you seen the bodies?”

  I am shocked. “No, of course not.”

  “Then how do you know they are dead?”

  I draw very close to him. “The duke and I agreed it should be done, and his man came to me late one night and told me that the deed was done.”

  “How did they do it?”

  I cannot meet his eyes. “He said that he and a couple of others caught them sleeping and pressed them in their bed, smothered them with the mattresses.”

  “Only three men!”

  “Three,” I say defensively. “I suppose it would need three—” I break off as I see that he is imagining, as I am, holding a ten-year-old boy and his twelve-year-old brother facedown in their beds and then crushing them with a mattress. “Buckingham’s men,” I remind him. “Not mine.”

  “Your orders, and three witnesses to it. Where are the bodies?”

  “Hidden under a stair in the Tower. When Henry is proclaimed king, he can discover them there and declare the boys were killed by Richard. He can hold a Mass, a funeral.”

  “And how do you know that Buckingham has not played you false? How do you know that he has not spirited them away and they are still alive somewhere?”

  I hesitate. Suddenly I feel that I may have made a mistake, giving dirty work to others to do. But I wanted it to be Buckingham’s men, and all the blame on Buckingham. “Why would he do that? It is in his interest that they should be dead,” I say, “just as much as ours. You yourself said that. And if the worst comes to the worst, and he has tricked me, and they are alive in the Tower, then someone can kill them later.”

  “You put a lot of faith in your allies,” my husband says unpleasantly. “And you keep your hands clean. But if you don’t strike the blow, you don’t know if it goes home. I just hope that you have done the job. Your son will never be safe on the throne if there is a York prince somewhere in hiding. He will spend his life looking over his shoulder. There will be a rival king waiting in Brittany for him, just as he was there for Edward. Just as he terrorizes Richard. Your precious son will be haunted by fear of a rival, just as he haunts Richard. Tudor will never have a moment’s peace. If you have botched this, you have given your son over to be dogged by an unquiet spirit, and the crown will never sit securely on his head.”

  “I do the will of God,” I say fiercely. “And it has been done. And I won’t be questioned. Henry will be safe on his true throne. He will not be haunted. The princes are dead, and I am guilty of nothing. Buckingham did it.”

  “At your suggestion.”

  “Buckingham did it.”

  “And you are sure they were both killed?”

  I hesitate for a moment as I think of Elizabeth Woodville’s odd words: “It’s not Richard.” What if she put a changeling in the Tower for me to kill? “Both of them,” I say steadily.

  My husband smiles his coldest smile. “I shall be glad to be sure of it.”

  “When my son comes into London in triumph and finds the bodies, lays the blame on Buckingham or Richard, and gives them a holy burial, you will see that I have done my part.”

  I go to bed uneasy, and the very next day, straight after matins, Dr. Lewis comes to my rooms looking strained and anxious. At once I say I am feeling unwell and send all my women away. We are alone in my privy chamber, and I let him take a stool and sit opposite me, almost as an equal.

  “The Queen Elizabeth summoned me to sanctuary last night, and she was distraught,” he says quietly.

  “She was?”

  “She had been told that the princes were dead, and she was begging me to tell her that it was not the case.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I didn’t know what you would have me say. So I told her what everyone in the city is saying: that they are dead. That Richard had them killed either on the day of his coronation, or as he left London.”

  “And she?”

  “She was deeply shocked; she could not believe it. But Lady Margaret, she said a terrible thing—” He breaks off, as if he dare not name it.

  “Go on,” I say but I can feel a cold shiver of dread creeping up my spine. I fear I have been betrayed. I fear that this has gone wrong.

  “She cried out at first and then she said: ‘At least Richard is safe.’”

  “She meant Prince Richard? The younger boy?”

  “The one they took into the Tower to keep his brother company.”

  “I know that! But what did she mean?”

  “That’s what I asked her. I asked her at once what she meant, and she smiled at me in the most frightening way and said: ‘Doctor, if you had only two precious, rare jewels and you feared thieves, would you put your two treasures in the same box?’”

  He nods at my aghast expression.

  “What does she mean?” I repeat.

  “She wouldn’t say more. I asked her if Prince Richard was not in the Tower when the two boys were killed. She just said that I was to ask you to put your own guards into the Tower to keep her son safe. She would say nothing more. She sent me away.”

  I rise from my stool. This damned woman, this witch, has been in my light ever since I was a girl, and now, at this very moment when I am using her, using her own adoring family and loyal supporters to wrench the throne from her, to destroy her sons, she may yet win, she may have done something that will spoil everything for me. How does she always do
it? How is it that when she is brought so low that I can even bring myself to pray for her, she manages to turn her fortunes around? It must be witchcraft; it can only be witchcraft. Her happiness and her success have haunted my life. I know her to be in league with the devil, for sure. I wish he would take her to hell.

  “You will have to go back to her,” I say, turning to him.

  He almost looks as if he would refuse.

  “What?” I snap.

  “Lady Margaret, I swear, I dread going to her. She is like a witch imprisoned in the cleft of a pine tree; she is like an entrapped spirit; she is like a water goddess on a frozen lake, waiting for spring. She lives in the gloom of sanctuary with the river flowing all the time beside their rooms, and she listens to the babble as a counsellor. She knows things that she cannot know by earthly means. She fills me with terror. And her daughter is as bad.”

  “You will have to summon your courage,” I say briskly. “Be brave, you are doing God’s work. You have to go back to her and tell her to be of stout heart. Tell her that I am certain that the princes are alive. Remind her that when we attacked the Tower, we heard the guards taking them back from the door. They were alive then, why would Richard kill them now? Richard has taken the throne without killing them, why would he put them to death now? Richard is a man who does his own work, and he is hundreds of miles away from them now. Tell her that I will double my people in the Tower and that I swear to her, on my honor, that I will protect them. Remind her that the uprising will start next month. As soon as we defeat Richard the king, we will set the boys free. Then, when she is reassured, when she is in her first moment of relief, when you see the color come to her face and you have convinced her—in that moment quickly ask her if she has her son Prince Richard in safety already. If she has him hidden away somewhere.”

  He nods, but he is pale with fear. “And are they safe?” he asks. “Can I truly assure her that those poor boys are safe and we will rescue them? That the rumors, even in your own household, are false? Do you know if they are alive or dead, Lady Margaret? Can I tell their mother that they are alive and speak the truth?”