The Red Queen Read online

  I have been much at fault, I see it all now, and I beg God to forgive me. My fault was to ally with Buckingham, whose vain ambition and ungodly lust for power brought down the rain on us, and with the Queen Elizabeth, whose vanity and desire were unsightly in the eyes of God. Also, who knows what she did to call up the rain?

  I should have been, as Joan was, a woman riding out alone, with her own vision. By allying myself with sinners—and such sinners! A woman who was the widow of Sir John Grey. A boy who was married to Katherine Woodville.—I received the punishment for their sins. I was not sinful myself—and God who knows everything will know this—but I let myself join with them; and I, the godly, shared the punishment of sinners.

  It is agony to me to think that their wrongdoing should destroy the righteousness of my cause; she a proclaimed witch, and the daughter of a witch, and he a peacock for all his short life. I should not have stooped to ally myself with them; I should have kept my own counsel and let them raise their own rebellion and do their own murders, and kept myself free of it all. But as it is, their failure has brought me down, their rain has washed away my hopes, their sin is blamed on me; and here I am, cruelly punished for their crimes.

  SPRING 1484

  All the winter and all of the spring, I meditate on their wrongdoing, and I find I am glad that the queen is still locked in sanctuary. While I am imprisoned in my own home, I think of her, trapped in the gloomy crypt beside the river, facing her defeat in the darkness. But then, in the spring, I have a letter from my husband.

  King Richard and Elizabeth Woodville have come to an accord. She has accepted the writ of Parliament that she was never married to the late king, and King Richard has sworn that she and her daughters will be safe to come out of sanctuary. She is going into the keeping of John Nesfield and will live in his manor at Heytesbury in Wiltshire, and the girls are to go to court and serve as ladies-in-waiting to Queen Anne until marriages can be arranged for them. He knows that your son declared his betrothal to the Princess Elizabeth, but you and your son are disregarded. Elizabeth Woodville seems to have accepted defeat, and she seems reconciled to the deaths of her two sons. She never speaks of either.

  And—at this time of reconciliation—I ordered a private search of the Tower so that the bodies of the princes might be found and their deaths blamed on the Duke of Buckingham (and not on you), but the stair where you said they were buried has not been disturbed and there is no sign of them. I have let it be spread about that their bodies were buried and then taken away by a remorseful priest and laid to rest in the deepest waters of the Thames—appropriate, I thought, for sons of the House of Rivers. This seems to conclude the story as well as any other version, and no one has contradicted this with any more inconvenient details. Your three murderers, if they did the deed at all, are staying quiet.

  I shall come to visit you shortly—the court is joyous in its triumph in the fine weather and the newly released Princess Elizabeth of York is the little queen of the court. She is the most charming girl, as beautiful as her mother was; half the court is besotted with her, and she will certainly be married very well within the year. A girl so exquisite will not be hard to match.

  Stanley

  This letter irritates me so intensely that I cannot even pray for the rest of the day. I have to take my horse and ride to the end of the parkland and all around the perimeter—the limit of my freedom—hardly seeing the bobbing yellow heads of the daffodils, nor the young lambs in the fields, before I can recover my temper. The suggestion that the princes are not dead and buried, which undoubtedly they are, and his further layering of lies with his exhumation and water burial in the Thames story—which merely creates further questions—would be enough to enrage me, but to couple it with news of the freedom of Queen Elizabeth and the triumph of her daughter at the court of the man who should be their enemy till death: this shocks me to the core.

  How can the queen bring herself to forge an agreement with the man she should accuse of killing her sons? It is a mystery to me, an abomination. And how can that girl go dancing round her uncle’s court as if he were not the murderer of her brothers and the jailer of her girlhood? I cannot comprehend it. The queen is, as she always has been, steeped in vanity and lives only for her own comfort and pleasure. No surprise to me at all that she should settle for a handsome manor and—no doubt—a good pension and a pleasant livelihood. She cannot be grieving for her boys at all, if she will take her freedom from the hands of their murderer.

  Heytesbury Manor indeed! I know that house, and she will be luxuriously comfortable there, and I don’t doubt that John Nesfield will allow her to order anything she wants. Men always fall over themselves to oblige Elizabeth Woodville because they are fools for a pretty face, and though she led a rebellion in which good men died and which cost me everything; it seems that she is to get off scot-free.

  And her daughter must be a thousand times worse, to accept freedom under these terms and to go to court and order fine dresses, and serve as lady-in-waiting to a usurping queen, sitting on the throne that had been her mother’s! Words fail me, my prayers fail me, I am stunned into silence by the falseness and the vanity of the York queen and the York princess, and the only thing I can think of is how can I punish them for getting free, when I am ruined and imprisoned? It cannot be right, after all we have gone through, that the York queen once again comes out of danger and sanctuary and lives in a beautiful house in the heart of England, raises her daughters, and sees them married well among her friends and neighbors. It cannot be right that the York princess is a favorite at the court, the darling of her uncle, the sweetheart of the people, and I thrown down. God cannot really want these women to lead peaceful, happy lives while my son is in exile. It cannot be His will. He must want justice, He must want to see them punished, He must want to see their downfall. He must long for the burning of the brand. He must desire the scent of the smoke of their sacrifice. And, God knows, I would be His willing instrument if He would just put the weapon in my obedient hand.

  APRIL 1484

  My husband comes to visit me as the king is on a spring progress, traveling to Nottingham, where he will make his headquarters this year, readying for the invasion of my son that he knows must come this year, or the next, or the year after. Thomas Stanley rides out on my lands every day, as greedy for the chase as if it were his own game to kill—and then I remember that it is. Everything belongs to him now. He eats well at night and drinks deeply of the rare wines laid down in the cellar by Henry Stafford, for me and for my son, and which now belong to him. I thank God that I am not attached to worldly goods, as other women are, or I would look at the march of bottles along the table with deep resentment. But I thank Our Lady; my mind is fixed on the will of God and the success of my son.

  “Does Richard know of Henry’s plans?” I ask, one evening before he is utterly sodden with the wine that my cellars are forced to yield to him.

  “He has spies all over Henry’s little court, of course,” Stanley replies. “And a spy network which passes news from one end of the country to the other. A fishing boat could not land in Penzance now without Richard learning of it the next day. But your son has grown into a cautious and clever young man. As far as I know, he keeps his counsel and makes plans only with his uncle Jasper. He takes no one else into his confidence; Richard never refers to any intelligence from Brittany that is not obvious news. It is clear that they will equip ships and come again, as soon as they are able. But they will be set back by their failure last year. They have lost their sponsor a small fortune; perhaps he will not want to risk another fleet for them. Most people think the Duke of Brittany will have to give them up and hand them over to France. Once in the power of the French king they could be lost, they could be made. More than that, Richard doesn’t know.”

  I nod.

  “Did you hear that Thomas Grey, Elizabeth Woodville’s son, ran from your son’s court and was trying to get home to England?”

  “No!” I am
shocked. “Why would he do that? Why would he want to leave Henry?”

  My husband smiles at me over his wineglass. “It seems that his mother commanded him to come home and make his peace with Richard, just as she and the girls have done. Doesn’t look as if she believes that Richard killed the boys, does it? Doesn’t look like she thinks Henry is a horse worth backing anymore. Why else would she hope for a full reconciliation with the king? Looks like she wants to sever her ties with Henry Tudor.”

  “Who knows what she thinks?” I say irritably. “She is a fickle woman with no loyalty to anyone but her own interest. And no sense.”

  “Your son Henry Tudor caught Thomas Grey on the road and took him back again,” my husband remarks. “So now, they are holding him as a prisoner. He is more a hostage than a supporter to their court. It doesn’t bode well for the betrothal of your son and the princess though, does it? I assume she will reject the betrothal, just as her half brother has denied his fealty. That must hurt your cause, as well as humiliating Henry. Looks like the House of York has turned against you.”

  “She can’t deny her betrothal,” I snap. “Her mother swore to it, and so did I. And Henry has sworn to it before God in the cathedral at Rennes. She will have to get a dispensation from the pope himself if she wants to get out of it. And anyway, why would she want to get out of it?”

  My husband’s smile grows broader. “She has a suitor,” he says quietly.

  “She has no right to have a suitor; she is betrothed to my son.”

  “Yes, but she has all the same.”

  “Some grubby page, I daresay.”

  He chuckles as if at a private jest. “Oh no. Not exactly.”

  “No nobleman would stoop to marry her. She is declared a bastard, is publicly betrothed to my son, and her uncle has promised her only a moderate dowry. Why would anyone want her? She is shamed three times over.”

  “For her beauty? She is radiant, you know. And her charm—she has the most delightful smile, you really can’t look away from her. And she has a merry heart, and a pure soul. She is a lovely girl, a real princess in every way. It is as if she came out of sanctuary and simply came alive in the world. I think he is just simply in love with her.”

  “Who is this fool?”

  He glows with amusement. “Her suitor, the one I am telling you about.”

  “So who is this lovestruck idiot?”

  “King Richard himself.”

  For a moment I am silenced. I cannot imagine such wickedness, such a ruling of lust. “He is her uncle!”

  “They could get a papal dispensation.”

  “He is married.”

  “You said yourself that Queen Anne is infertile and unlikely to make old bones. He could ask her to step aside; it wouldn’t be unreasonable. He needs another heir—his own son is ill again. He needs another boy to secure his line, and the Riverses are famously fertile. Think of Queen Elizabeth’s performance in the marriage bed of England!”

  My sour face tells him I am thinking of it. “She is young enough to be his daughter!”

  “As you yourself know, that is hardly an obstacle, but in any case, it isn’t true. There are only fourteen years between them.”

  “He is the murderer of her brothers, and the destruction of her house!”

  “Now you, of all people, know that is not true. Not even the common people believe that Richard killed the boys, now that the queen is reconciled with him and living in the country, and the princesses are at his court.”

  I rise from the table; I am so disturbed I forget even to say grace. “He can’t intend to marry her; he must mean only to seduce her and shame her, to make her unfit for Henry.”

  “Unfit for Henry!” He laughs aloud. “As though Henry is in a position to choose! As though he is such a catch himself! As though you have not tied him to the princess just as you say she is tied to him.”

  “Richard will make her his whore to shame her and her whole family.”

  “I don’t think so. I think he loves her, truly. I think King Richard is in love with Princess Elizabeth, and it is the first time in his life he has ever been in love. You see him look at her, and he seems just filled with wonder. It is an extraordinary thing to see, as if he had discovered the meaning of life in her. It is as if she were his white rose, truly.”

  “And she?” I spit. “Does she show proper distance? Is she a princess in her self-respect? She should think only of her purity and her virtue, if she is a princess and hopes to be queen.”

  “She adores him,” he says simply. “It shows. She lights up when he comes in the room, and when she dances she throws him a little private smile and he can’t take his eyes off her. They are a couple in love, and anyone but a fool would see it is simply that, nothing more—and certainly nothing less.”

  “Then she is no better than a whore,” I say, going from the room as I cannot bear to hear another word. “And I shall write to her mother and give her my sympathy, and my prayers for her daughter who has fallen into shame. But I cannot be surprised at the two of them. The mother is a whore; and it turns out that the daughter is no better.”

  I close the door on his mocking laughter, and I find to my surprise that I am shaking, and that there are tears on my cheeks.

  Next day, a messenger comes from the court for my husband, and he does not have the courtesy to send it on to me, so I have to go down to the stable yard, like a maid-in-waiting, to find him calling out his men and ordering them into the saddle. “What is happening?”

  “I am going back to court. I have had a message.”

  “I was waiting for you to send the messenger on to me.”

  “It was my business. Not yours.”

  I close my lips on an undutiful retort. Since he was granted my lands and my fortune he has not hesitated to behave as my master. I submit to his rudeness with the grace from Our Lady, and I know that She will make note of it.

  “Husband, will you tell me please if there is danger or trouble in the land? I must be allowed an answer to that.”

  “There is loss,” he says briefly. “There is loss in the land. King Richard’s son, the little Prince Edward, is dead.”

  “God rest his soul,” I say piously, while my head spins with excitement.

  “Amen. And so I must go back to court. We will be in mourning. It will strike Richard hard, I don’t doubt. Only one child ever born to them, and now he is gone.”

  I nod. Now there is only Richard himself between my boy and the throne; there is no other heir but my son. We spoke of the heartbeats that blocked my son’s path to the throne, and now all the boys of York are dead. It is time for the Lancaster boy. “So Richard has no heir,” I breathe. “We serve a childless king.”

  My husband’s dark eyes are on my face; he smiles as if he is amused by my ambition. “Unless he marries the York princess,” he teases me gently. “And they are fertile stock, remember. Her mother gave birth almost every year. Say Elizabeth of York gives him a quiver full of princes and the support of the Rivers family, and the love of the York affinity? He has no son from Anne—what should now stop him putting her aside? She might give him a divorce at once, and retire to a nunnery.”

  “Why don’t you go back to court?” I ask, too angry to mind my tongue. “You go back to your faithless master and his York whore.”

  “I will go.” He swings up into the saddle. “But I will leave you with Ned Parton over there.” He gestures to a young man standing beside a big black horse. “He is my messenger. He speaks three languages, including Breton, should you want to send him to Brittany. He has a safe pass through this country, through France and Flanders, signed by me as Constable of England. You can trust him to send messages to anyone you like, and no one can stop him or take them from him. King Richard may appear to be my master, but I don’t forget your son and his ambitions, and he is only one step from the throne this morning, and my beloved stepson as always.”

  “But which side are you on?” I demand in frustration, a
s his men mount their horses and raise his banner.

  “The winning side,” he says with a short laugh, and thumps his chest in a salute to me like a soldier, and is gone.

  SUMMER 1484

  I wait. All I can do is wait. I send out letters by Ned Parton, and Jasper replies to me, courteously, as to a powerless woman, far away, who understands nothing. I see that the failed rebellion that cost them their army and their fleet also spoiled their faith in me as a coconspirator, as a woman of power in the country they hoped to take. In the hot summer days as the crops ripen in the fields and the haymakers go out with their scythes and cut the hay, I see I am become as marginal as the hares that run from the blades straight into the snares because they understand nothing.

  I write, I send messages. I scold Elizabeth Woodville, the sometime queen, about the behavior of her daughters, which is reported to me in more and more detail: their beautiful clothes, their importance at the court, their beauty, their lighthearted joy, their easy Rivers charm as they flow from one amusement to another. There were many who said that their grandmother Jacquetta was a witch, a descendant of Melusina the water goddess, and now there are many who say that these girls weave their magic too. Finest of them all is the girl who is promised to Henry but behaves as if she has forgotten all about him. I write to Elizabeth Woodville to call her to account; I write to the vain girl, Elizabeth of York, to reprimand her; I write to Henry to remind him of his duty—and nobody, nobody, bothers to reply to me.

  I am alone in my house; and for all that I have longed all my life for a solitary routine of prayer, I am most terribly alone, and most terribly lonely. I begin to think that nothing will ever change, that I will live out my life here, visited occasionally by a jeering husband who will drink wine from my cellar and eat game from my fields with the special relish of a poacher. I will hear news from court, which indicates that nobody remembers me, or my one-time great importance. I will hear from my son, far away, and he will politely send his good wishes and, on the day of his birth, his acknowledgment of my sacrifice for him; but he will never send me his love nor tell me when I may look for him.