The White Queen: A Novel Page 6

  My mother smiles up at his cross face. “If you were right and he was going to deny the marriage, then her prospects would be poor indeed,” she agrees.

  I turn my head from them. It is only a moment since my lover was telling me how to keep his son safe. Now this same child is described as my ruin.

  “I am going to see my sons,” I say coldly to them both. “I won’t hear this and I won’t speak of it. I am true to him and he will be true to me, and you will be sorry that you doubted us.”

  “You are a fool,” my brother says, unimpressed. “I am sorry for that, at least.” And to my mother he says, “You have taken a great gamble with her, a brilliant gamble; but you have staked her life and happiness on the word of a known liar.”

  “Perhaps,” my mother says, unmoved. “And you are a wise man, my son, a philosopher. But some things I know better than you, even now.”

  I stalk away. Neither of them calls me back.

  I have to wait, the whole kingdom has to wait again to hear who to hail as king, who shall command. My brother Anthony sends a man north, scouting for news, and then we all wait for him to come back to tell us if the battle has been joined, and if King Edward’s luck has held. Finally, in May, Anthony’s servant comes home and says he has been in the far north, near to Hexham, and met a man who told him all about it. A bad battle, a bloody battle. I hesitate in the doorway; I want to know the outcome, not the details. I don’t have to see a battle to imagine it anymore; we have become a country accustomed to tales of the battlefield. Everyone has heard of the armies drawn up in their positions, or seen the charge, the falling back and the exhausted pause while they regroup. Or everyone knows someone who has been in a town where the victorious soldiers came through determined to carouse and rob and rape; everyone has stories of women running to a church for sanctuary, screaming for help. Everyone knows that these wars have torn our country apart, have destroyed our prosperity, our friendliness between neighbors, our trust of strangers, the love between brothers, the safety of our roads, the affection for our king; and yet nothing seems to stop the battles. We go on and on seeking a final victory and a triumphant king who will bring peace; but victory never comes and peace never comes and the kingship is never settled.

  Anthony’s messenger gets to the point. King Edward’s army has won, and won decisively. The Lancaster forces were routed and King Henry, the poor wandering lost King Henry who does not know fully where he is, even when he is in his palace at Whitehall, has run away into the moors of Northumberland, a price on his head as if he were an outlaw, without attendants, without friends, without even followers, like a borderer rebel as wild as a chough.

  His wife, Queen Margaret of Anjou, my mother’s one-time dearest friend, is fled to Scotland with the prince their heir. She is defeated, and her husband is vanquished. But everyone knows that she will not accept her defeat, she will plot and scheme for her son, just as Edward told me that I must plot and scheme for ours. She will never stop until she is back in England and the battle is drawn up again. She will never stop until her husband is dead, her son is dead, and she has no one left to put on the throne. This is what it means to be Queen of England in this country today. This is how it has been for her for nearly ten years, ever since her husband became unfit to rule and his country became like a frightened hare thrown into a field before a pack of hunting dogs, darting this way and that. Worse, I know that this is how it will be for me, if Edward comes home to me and names me as the new queen, and we make a son and heir. The young man I love will be king of an uncertain kingdom, and I will have to be a claimant queen.

  And he does come. He sends me word that he has won the battle and broken the siege of Bamburgh Castle, and will call in as his army marches south. He will come for dinner, he writes to my father, and in a private note to me he scribbles that he will stay the night.

  I show the note to my mother. “You can tell Anthony that my husband is true to me,” I say.

  “I shan’t tell Anthony anything,” she says unhelpfully.

  My father, at any rate, manages to be pleased at the prospect of a visit from the victor. “We were right to give him our men,” he says to my mother. “Bless you for that, love. He is the victorious king and you have put us on the winning side once more.”

  She smiles at him. “It could have gone either way, as always,” she says. “And it is Elizabeth who has turned his head. It is she he is coming to see.”

  “Do we have some well-hung beef?” he asks. “And John and the boys and I will go hawking and get you some game.”

  “We’ll give him a good dinner,” she reassures him. But she does not tell my father that he has greater cause for celebration: that the King of England has married me. She stays silent, and I wonder if she too thinks that he is playing me false.

  There is no sign of what my mother thinks, one way or another, when she greets him with a low curtsey. She shows no familiarity, as a woman might do to her son-in-law. But she treats him with no coldness, as surely she would if she thought he had made fools of us both? Rather, she greets him as a victorious king and he greets her as a great lady, a former duchess, and both of them treat me as a favored daughter of the house.

  Dinner is as successful as it is bound to be, given that my father is filled with bluster and excitement, my mother as elegant as always, my sisters in their usual state of stunned admiration, and my brothers furiously silent. The king bids his farewell to my parents and rides off down the road as if going back to Northampton, and I throw on my cape and run down the path to the hunting lodge by the river.

  He is there before me, his big war horse in the stall, his page boy in the hayloft, and he takes me into his arms without a word. I say nothing too. I am not such a fool as to greet a man with suspicion and complaints, and besides, when he touches me, all I want is his touch, when he kisses me, all I want are his kisses, and all I want to hear are the sweetest words in the world, when he says: “Bed, Wife.”

  In the morning I am combing my hair before the little silvered mirror and pinning it up. He stands behind me, watching me, sometimes taking a lock of golden hair and winding it round his finger to see it catch the light. “You aren’t helping,” I say, smiling.

  “I don’t want to help, I want to hinder. I adore your hair, I like to see it loose.”

  “And when shall we announce our marriage, my lord?” I ask, watching his face in the reflection.

  “Not yet,” he says swiftly, too swiftly: this is an answer prepared. “My lord Warwick is hell-bent on me marrying the Princess Bona of Savoy, to guarantee peace with France. I have to take some time to tell him it cannot be. He will need to get used to the idea.”

  “Some days?” I suggest.

  “Say weeks,” he prevaricates. “He will be disappointed and he has taken God knows what bribes to bring this marriage about.”

  “He is disloyal? He is bribed?”

  “No. Not he. He takes the French money but not to betray me: we are as one. We have known each other since boyhood. He taught me how to joust, he gave me my first sword. His father was like a father to me. Truly, he has been like an older brother to me. I would not have fought for my right to the throne if he had not been with me. His father took my father up to the very throne and made him heir to the King of England, and in his turn Richard Neville has supported me. He is my great mentor, my great friend. He has taught me almost everything I know about fighting and ruling a kingdom. I have to take the time to tell him about us, and explain that I could not resist you. I owe him that.”

  “He is so important to you?”

  “The greatest man in my life.”

  “But you will tell him; you will bring me to court,” I say, trying to keep my voice light and inconsequential. “And present me to the court as your wife.”

  “When the time is right.”

  “May I at least tell my father, so that we can meet openly as husband and wife?”

  He laughs. “As well tell the town crier. No, my lo
ve, you must keep our secret for a little while longer.”

  I take my tall headdress with the sweeping veil and tie it on, saying nothing. It gives me a headache with the weight of it.

  “You do trust me, don’t you, Elizabeth?” he asks sweetly.

  “Yes,” I lie. “Completely.”

  Anthony stands beside me as the king rides away, his hand raised in a salute, a false smile on his face. “Not going with him?” he asks sarcastically. “Not going to London to buy new clothes? Not going to be presented at court? Not attending the thanksgiving Mass as queen?”

  “He has to tell Lord Warwick,” I say. “He has to explain.”

  “It will be Lord Warwick who will explain to him,” my brother says bluntly. “He will tell him that no King of England can afford to marry a commoner, no King of England would marry a woman who is not a proven virgin. No King of England would marry an Englishwoman of no family and no fortune. And your precious king will explain that it was a wedding witnessed by no lord nor court official, that his new wife has not even told her family, that she wears her ring in her pocket; and they will both agree it can be ignored as if it had never happened. As he has done before, so he will do again, as long as there are foolish women in the kingdom—and that is to say forever.”

  I turn to him and at the pain on my face he stops taunting me. “Ah, Elizabeth, don’t look like that.”

  “I don’t care if he doesn’t acknowledge me, you fool,” I flare out. “It’s not a question of wanting to be queen; it’s not even a question of wanting honorable love anymore. I am mad for him, I am madly in love with him. I would go to him if I had to walk barefoot. Tell me I am one of many. I don’t care! I don’t care for my name or for my pride anymore. As long as I can have him once more, that’s all I want, just to love him; all I want to be certain of is that I will see him again, that he loves me.”

  Anthony folds me in his arms and pats my back. “Of course he loves you,” he says. “What man could not? And if he does not, then he is a fool.”

  “I love him,” I say miserably. “I would love him if he were a nobody.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” he says gently. “You are your mother’s child through and through; you don’t have the blood of a goddess in you for nothing. You were born to be queen and maybe everything will come out well. Maybe he loves you and will stand by you.”

  I tilt my head back to scan his face. “But you don’t believe it.”

  “No,” he says honestly. “To tell you the truth, I think you have seen the last of him.”

  SEPTEMBER 1464

  He sends me a letter. He addresses me as Lady Elizabeth Grey and inside he writes “my love” he does not say “wife,” so he gives me nothing that can prove our marriage if he should deny it. He writes that he is busy but will send for me shortly. The court is at Reading, he will speak to Lord Warwick soon. The council is meeting, there is so much to do. The lost king, Henry, has still not been captured; he is out somewhere in the hills of Northumberland; but the queen has fled to her homeland of France demanding help, so an alliance with France is more important than ever before, to cut her out of the French councils, and make sure she cannot have allies. He does not remark that a French marriage would do this for him. He says he loves me, he burns up for me. Lover’s words, lover’s promises: nothing binding.

  The same messenger brings a summons for my father to attend the court at Reading. It is a standard letter, every nobleman in the country will have had the same. My brothers Anthony, John, Richard, Edward, and Lionel are to go with him. “Write and tell me everything about it,” my mother commands my father as we watch them mount up. They make a little army themselves, my mother’s fine brood of sons.

  “He will be calling us to announce his wedding to the French princess,” my father grumbles, bending over to tighten his girth under the saddle flap. “And much good an alliance with the French will do us. Much good it has ever done us before. Still, it will have to be done if Margaret of Anjou is to be silenced. And a French bride would welcome you at her court, a kinswoman.”

  My mother does not even blink at the prospect of Edward’s French bride. “Write and tell me at once,” she says. “And God go with you, my husband, and keep you safe.”

  He leans down from the saddle to kiss her hand and then turns his horse’s head down the road to the south. My brothers twirl their whips, raise their hats, bellow a farewell. My sisters wave, my sister-in-law Elizabeth curtseys to Anthony, who raises his hand to her, my mother, and to me. His face is grim.

  But it is Anthony who writes to me two days later, and it is his manservant who rides like a madman to bring me his letter.

  Sister,

  This is your triumph, and I am glad to my heart for you. There has been an earthshaking quarrel between the king and Lord Warwick, for my lord brought a marriage contract to the king for him to marry Princess Bona of Savoy, as everyone was expecting. The king, with the contract before him and the pen in his hand, raised his head and told his lordship that he could not marry the Princess for—actually—he was already married.You could have heard a feather fall; you could hear the angels gasp. I swear I heard Lord Warwick’s very heart pound as he asked the king to repeat what he had said. The king was white as a girl but he faced Lord Warwick (which I would not want to do myself) and told him that all his plans and all his promises were as nothing. His lordship took the king by the arm as if he were a boy and hustled him from the room into a privy chamber, leaving the rest of us boiling with gossip and amazement like neeps seething in a stew.

  I took the chance to pin our father into the corner and tell him that I thought the king might announce his marriage to you, so as to prevent us looking as great fools as Lord W—but even in that moment I confess to you that I feared that the king might be admitting marriage to another lady. There has been another lady mentioned of noble birth, better than ours, actually, and she has his son. Forgive me, Sister, but you don’t know how bad his reputation has been. So Father and I were like hares in March, jumping at nothing, while the privy chamber door stayed shut and the king was locked away with the man who made him and who—God knows—might just as quickly unmake him again.

  Of course Lionel wanted to know what we were whispering about, and John too. Thank God, Edward and Richard had gone out, so there were only two extra to tell; but they couldn’t believe it any more than Father, and I had much to do to keep the three of them quiet. You can imagine what it was like.

  An hour must have passed but no one could bear to leave the council chamber until they had the end of this story. Sister, they were pissing in the fireplaces rather than leave the great hall—and then the door opened and the king came out looking shaken and Lord Warwick came out looking grim and the king put on his happiest smile and said, “Well, my lords, I thank you for your patience. I am happy and proud to tell you that I am married to Lady Elizabeth Grey,” and he nodded towards my father and I swear he shot me a look which begged me to keep Father quiet, so I got hold of the old man’s shoulder and leaned hard to keep him anchored to the ground. Edward got the other side of him as ballast, and Lionel crossed himself like he was an archbishop already. Father and I bowed proudly and simpered about ourselves, as if we had known all along and only failed to mention that we were now brother and father-in-law to the King of England from sheer delicacy.

  John and Richard stumbled in at this most inconvenient moment and we had to mutter to them that the world was turned upside down and they did better than you can imagine. They managed to close their mouths and stood beside Father and me, and people took our dumbstruck faces for quiet pride. We were a quartet of idiots trying to look suave. You cannot imagine the bluster and the shouting and the complaints and the trouble which followed. Nobody in my hearing dared to suggest that the king had stooped too low, but I know that behind me and on either side there were men who think so, and will go on thinking so. Still, the king kept his fair head high and brazened it out, and Father and I went and stood o
n either side of him, and all my brothers stood behind us, and no one can deny that we are a handsome family, or at the very least tall, and the thing is done, nobody can now deny it. You can tell Mother that her great gamble has paid a thousandfold: you will be Queen of England and we will be England’s ruling family, even if no one in England wants us.

  Father kept his mouth shut till we were clear of the court but I swear his eyes were rolling in his head like Idiot Jim at Stony Stratford, till we got to our lodgings and I could tell him what had been done and how it had been done—at least as far as I knew—and now he is aggrieved that nobody told him, since he would have managed it so well and been so discreet—but given that he is father-in-law to the King of England I think he will forgive you and Mother for keeping your women’s toils to your- selves. Your brothers went out and got drunk on credit, as anyone would do. Lionel swears he will be pope.

  Your new husband is clearly stunned by the row that has broken on his head, and he will find it hard to reconcile with his former master Lord Warwick, who is dining apart tonight and could make a dangerous enemy. We are to dine with the king and his interests are ours. The world has changed for us Riverses, and we are become so great that I confidently expect us to flow up hills. We are now passionate Yorkists and you can expect Father to plant white roses in his hedgerows and wear a bloom in his hat. You can tell Mother that whatever magic she deployed to bring this about has the stunned admiration of her husband and sons. If the magic was nothing more than your beauty, we admire that too.

  You are now summoned to be presented at court, here at Reading. The king’s order will be sent tomorrow. Sister, be warned by me and please come dressed modestly and with only a small escort. It will not avert envy but we should try not to make matters worse than they already are. We have made enemies of every family in the kingdom. Families that we do not even know will be cursing our luck and wishing us to fall. Ambitious fathers with pretty daughters will never forgive you. We will have to be on our guard for the rest of our lives. You have put us into great opportunity but also great risk, my sister. I am brother-in-law to the King of England, but I must say tonight my greatest hope is to die in my bed, at peace with the world, as an old man.