The White Queen Read online

  Your brother,

  Anthony

  But I think, in the meantime, before my peaceful death, I shall ask him to make me a duke.

  My mother plans our journey to Reading and the summoning of our family as if she were a queen militant. Every relation that would benefit from our rise or might contribute to our position is commanded from every corner of England, and even our Burgundy family—her kinsmen—are invited to come to London for my coronation. She says that they will give me the royal and noble status that we need, and besides, in the state the world is in, it is always wise to have powerful relatives for support or refuge.

  She starts to draw up a list of eligible lords and ladies for my brothers and sisters to marry; she starts to consider noble children who will be made wards and can be raised in a royal nursery to our profit. She understands, and she starts to teach me, how the patronage and power of the English court works. She knows it well enough. She was married into the royal family with her first husband, the Duke of Bedford. Then she was second lady in the kingdom under the Lancaster queen; now she will be second lady under the York queen: me. No one knows better than she how to plow the furrow that is royal England.

  She sends a string of instructions to Anthony to order tailors and sempstresses so that I shall have new dresses waiting for me, but she takes his advice that we should enter into our greatness quietly, and without any sign of glorying in this leap from being of the defeated House of Lancaster to being new partners of the victorious House of York. My sisters, cousins, and sister-in-law are to ride with us to Reading, but there is to be no great train with standards and trumpets. Father writes to her that there are many who begrudge us our prosperity, but the ones whom he fears above all are the king’s greatest friend Sir William Hastings, the king’s great ally Lord Warwick, and the king’s close family: his mother, sisters and brothers, as they have the most to lose from new favorites at court.

  I remember Hastings looking at me as if I were roadside merchandise, a pedlar’s pack, the very first time that I met the king, and I promise myself that he will never look at me in that way again. Hastings, I think I can manage. He loves the king like no other, and he will accept any choice that Edward makes, and defend it too. But Lord Warwick frightens me. He is a man who will stop at nothing to get his own way. As a boy he saw his father rebel against his lawful king and set up a rival house in the name of York. When his father and Edward’s father were killed together, he at once continued his father’s work and saw Edward crowned king, a boy of only nineteen. Warwick is thirteen years his senior: an adult man compared with a boy. Clearly he has planned all along to put a boy on the throne and to rule from the shadows. Edward’s choice of me will be the first declaration of independence from his mentor, and Warwick will be quick to prevent any others. They call him the kingmaker and when we were Lancastrians we said that the Yorks were nothing but puppets and he and his family were the puppet masters. Now I am married to Warwick’s puppet, and I know that he will try to set me dancing to his tune as well. Still, there is no time to do anything but bid farewell to my boys, make them promise to obey their tutors and be good, mount the new horse that the king has sent me for the journey, and with my mother at my side and my sisters following behind me take the road to Reading and to the future that waits for me.

  I say to my mother, “I am afraid.”

  She brings her horse beside mine and she puts back the hood of her cape so that I can see the smiling confidence in her face. “Perhaps,” she says. “But I was at the court of Queen Margaret d’Anjou; I swear you cannot be a worse queen than her.”

  Despite myself, I giggle. This comes from a woman who was Margaret of Anjou’s most trusted lady-in-waiting and the first lady of her court. “You have changed your tune.”

  “Aye, for now I am in a different choir. But it is true nonetheless. You could not be a worse queen for this country than she was, God help her, wherever she is now.”

  “Mother—she was married to a husband who was out of his wits for half of the time.”

  “And whether he was saintly, sane, or raving mad, she always went her own way. She took a lover,” she says cheerfully, ignoring my scandalized gasp. “Of course she did. Where d’you think she got her son Edward? Not from the king, who was struck deaf and dumb nearly for the whole year that the child was conceived and born. I expect you to do better than her. You cannot doubt that you can do better than her. And Edward cannot help but do better than a sainted half-wit, God bless the poor man. And as for the rest, you should give your husband a son and heir, protect the poor and innocent, and further the hopes of your family. That is all you need to do, and you can do that. Any ninny with an honest heart, a scheming family, and an open purse can do that.”

  “There will be many people who hate me,” I say. “Many who hate us.”

  She nods. “Then make sure that you get the favors that you want and the places that you need before they take the ear of the king,” she says simply. “There are only so many great positions for your brothers; there are only a few noblemen for your sisters to marry. Make sure that you get everything you want in the first year, and then you have taken the high ground, and are in battle array. We are ready for whatever comes against us, and even if your influence declines with the king, then we are still safe.”

  “My lord Warwick…” I say nervously.

  She nods. “He is our enemy,” she says. It is the declaration of a blood feud. “You will watch him, and you will be wary of him. We will all be on our guard against him. Him and the king’s brothers: George, the Duke of Clarence, who is always so charming, and the boy Richard, the Duke of Gloucester. They too will be your enemies.”

  “Why the king’s brothers?”

  “Your sons will disinherit them. Your influence will turn the king from them. They have been three fatherless boys together; they have fought side by side for their family. He called them the three sons of York; he saw a sign for the three of them in the heavens. But now he will want to be with you, not with them. And the grants of lands and wealth that he might have given to them will come to you and yours. George was the heir after Edward, Richard the heir after him. As soon as you have a boy they drop one place.”

  “I am going to be Queen of England,” I protest. “You make it sound like a battle to the death.”

  “It is a battle to the death,” she says simply. “That is what it means to be Queen of England. You are not Melusina, rising from a fountain to easy happiness. You will not be a beautiful woman at court with nothing to do but make magic. The road you have chosen will mean that you have to spend your life scheming and fighting. Our task, as your family, is to make sure you win.”

  In the darkness of the forest he saw her, and whispered her name, Melusina, and at that summoning she rose out of the water and he saw that she was a woman of cool and complete beauty to the waist, and below that she was scaled, like a fish. She promised him that she would come to him and be his wife, she promised him that she would make him as happy as a mortal woman can, she promised him that she would curb her wild side, her tidal nature, that she would be an ordinary wife to him, a wife that he could be proud of; if he in return would let her have a time when she could be herself again, when she could return to her element of water, when she could wash away the drudgery of a woman’s lot and be, for just a little while, a water goddess once more. She knew that being a mortal woman is hard on the heart, hard on the feet. She knew that she would need to be alone in the water, under the water, the ripples reflected on her scaly tail now and then. He promised her that he would give her everything, everything she wanted, as men in love always do. And she trusted him despite herself, as women in love always do.

  My father and all my brothers ride out of Reading to greet us, so I might enter the town with my kinsmen at my side. There are crowds along the road and hundreds watching my father pull off his hat as he rides towards me, and then dismounts and kneels to me in the dust, honoring me as queen.


  “Get up, Father!” I say alarmed.

  He rises slowly and bows again. “You must become accustomed, Your Grace,” he says to me, his head bent to his knees.

  I wait till he comes up smiling at me. “Father, I don’t like to see you bow to me.”

  “You are Queen of England, now, Your Grace. Every man but one must bow to you.”

  “But you will still call me Elizabeth, Father?”

  “Only when we are alone.”

  “And you will give me your blessing?”

  His wide smile assures me that everything is the same as ever. “Daughter, we have to play at being kings and queens. You are the newest and most unlikely queen to a new and unlikely house. I never dreamed that you would capture a king. I certainly never thought that this lad would capture a throne. We are making a new world here; we are forming a new royal family. We have to be more royal than royalty itself or nobody will believe us. I can’t say I quite believe it myself.”

  My brothers all jump down from their horses, doff their caps, and kneel to me on the public highway. I look down at Anthony who called me a whore and my husband a liar. “You can stay down there,” I say. “Who is right now?”

  “You are,” he says cheerfully, rising up, kissing my hand, and remounting his horse. “I give you joy of your triumph.”

  My brothers come around me and kiss my hand. I smile down at them; it is as if we are all about to burst out laughing at our own presumption. “Who’d have thought it?” John says wonderingly. “Who would ever have dreamed it?”

  “Where is the king?” I ask as we start our small procession through the gates of the town. The streets are lined on either side with townspeople, guildsmen, apprentices, and there is a cheer for my beauty and laughter at our procession. I see Anthony flush when he hears a couple of bawdy jokes, and I put my hand on his gloved fist, clenched on the pommel of his saddle. “Hush,” I say. “People are bound to make mock. This was a secret wedding, we cannot deny it, and we will have to live down the scandal. And you don’t help me at all if you look offended.”

  At once he assumes the most ghastly simper. “This is my court smile,” he says out of the corner of his upturned mouth. “I use it when I talk to Warwick or the royal dukes. How d’you like it?”

  “Very elegant,” I say, trying not to laugh. “Dear God, Anthony, d’you think we will get through this all right?”

  “We will get through it triumphantly,” he says. “But we must stick together.”

  We turn up the high street and now there are hastily made banners and pictures of saints held from the overhanging windows to welcome me to the city. We ride to the abbey; and there, in the center of his court and advisors, I see him, Edward, dressed in cloth of gold with a scarlet cape and a scarlet hat on his head. He is unmistakable, the tallest man in the crowd, the most handsome, the undoubted King of England. He sees me, and our eyes meet, and it is once again as if no one else is there. I am so relieved to see him that I give him a little wave, like a girl, and instead of waiting for me to halt my horse and dismount and approach him up the carpet, he breaks away from them all and comes quickly to my side and lifts me off my horse and into his arms.

  There is a roar of delighted applause from the onlookers and a shocked silence from the court at this passionate breach of protocol.

  “Wife,” he says in my ear. “Dear God, I am so glad to have you in my arms.”

  “Edward,” I say. “I have been so afraid!”

  “We have won,” he says simply. “We will be together forever. I shall make you Queen of England.”

  “And I shall make you happy,” I say, quoting the marriage vows. “I shall be bonny and blithe at bed and board.”

  “I don’t care a damn about dinnertime,” he says vulgarly, and I hide my face against his shoulder and laugh.

  I still have to meet his mother; and Edward takes me to her private chambers before dinner. She was not present during my welcome from the court, and I am right to read this as her first snub, the first of many. He leaves me at her door. “She wants to see you alone.”

  “How do you think she will be?” I ask nervously.

  He grins. “What can she do?”

  “That is the very thing I would like to know before I go in to face her,” I say dryly, and walk past him as they throw open the doors to her presence chamber. My mother and three of my sisters come with me as a makeshift court, my newly declared ladies-in-waiting, and we step forward with all the eagerness of a coven of witches dragged to trial.

  The dowager Duchess Cecily is seated on a great chair covered by a cloth of estate, and she does not trouble herself to rise to greet me. She is wearing a gown encrusted with jewels at the hem and the breast, and a large square headdress that she wears proudly, like a crown. Very well, I am her son’s wife but not yet an ordained queen. She is not obliged to curtsey to me, and she will think of me as a Lancastrian, one of her son’s enemies. The turn of her head and the coldness of her smile convey very clearly that to her I am a commoner, as if she herself had not been born an ordinary Englishwoman. Behind her chair are her daughters Anne, Elizabeth, and Margaret, dressed quietly and modestly so as not to outshine their mother. Margaret is a pretty girl: fair and tall like her brothers. She smiles shyly at me, her new sister-in-law, but nobody steps forward to kiss me, and the room is as warm as a lake in December.

  I curtsey low, but not very low, to Duchess Cecily, out of respect to my husband’s mother, and behind me I see my mother sweep her grandest gesture and then stand still, her head up, a queen herself, in everything but a crown.

  “I will not pretend that I am happy with this secret marriage,” the dowager duchess says rudely.

  “Private,” my mother interrupts smartly.

  The duchess checks, amazed, and raises her perfectly arched eyebrows. “I beg your pardon, Lady Rivers. Did you speak?”

  “Neither my daughter nor your son would so far forget themselves as to marry in secret,” my mother says, her Burgundy accent suddenly revived. It is the very accent of elegance and high style for the whole of Europe. She could not remind everyone more clearly that she is the daughter of the Count of Saint-Pol, Burgundian royalty by birth. She was on first-name terms with the queen, whom she alone persists in calling Margaret d’Anjou, with much emphasis on the “d” of the title. She was the Duchess of Bedford by her first marriage to a duke of the royal blood, and the head of the Lancaster court when the woman seated so proudly before us was born nothing more than Lady Cecily Neville of Raby Castle. “Of course it was not a secret wedding. I was there and so were other witnesses. It was a private wedding.”

  “Your daughter is a widow and years older than my son,” Her Grace says, joining battle.

  “He is hardly an inexperienced boy. His reputation is notorious. And there are only five years between them.”

  There is a gasp from the duchess’s ladies and a flutter of alarm from her daughters. Margaret looks at me with sympathy, as if to say there is no escaping the humiliation to come. My sisters and I are like standing stones, as if we were dancing witches under a sudden enchantment.

  “And the good thing,” my mother says, warming to her theme, “is that we can at least be sure that they are both fertile. Your son has several bastards, I understand, and my daughter has two handsome legitimate boys.”

  “My son comes from a fertile family. I had eight boys,” the dowager duchess says.

  My mother inclines her head and the scarf on her headdress billows like a sail filled with the swollen breeze of her pride. “Oh, yes,” she remarks. “So you did. But of that eight, only three boys left, of course. So sad. As it happens, I have five sons. Five. And seven girls. Elizabeth comes from fertile royal stock. I think we can hope that God will bless the new royal family with issue.”

  “Nonetheless, she was not my choice, nor the choice of the Lord Warwick,” Her Grace repeats, her voice trembling with anger. “It would mean nothing if Edward were not king. I might overlook it if he were
a third or fourth son to throw himself away…”

  “Perhaps you might. But it does not concern us. King Edward is the king. The king is the king. God knows, he has fought enough battles to prove his claim.”

  “I could prevent him being king,” she rushes in, temper getting the better of her, her cheeks scarlet. “I could disown him, I could deny him, I could put George on the throne in his place. How would you like that—as the outcome of your so-called private wedding, Lady Rivers?”

  The duchess’s ladies blanch and sway back in horror. Margaret, who adores her brother, whispers, “Mother!” but dares say no more. Edward has never been their mother’s favorite. Edmund, her beloved Edmund, died with his father at Wakefield, and the Lancastrian victors stuck their heads on the gates of York. George, his brother, younger again, and his mother’s darling, is the pet of the family. Richard, the youngest of all, is the dark-haired runt of the litter. It is incredible that she should talk of putting one son before another, out of order.

  “How?” my mother says sharply, calling her bluff. “How would you overthrow your own son?”

  “If he was not my husband’s child—”

  “Mother!” Margaret wails.

  “And how could that be?” demands my mother, as sweet as poison. “Would you call your own son a bastard? Would you name yourself a whore? Just for spite, just to throw us down, would you destroy your own reputation and put cuckold’s horns on your own dead husband? When they put his head on the gates of York, they put a paper crown on him to make mock. That would be nothing to putting cuckold’s horns on him now. Would you dishonor your own name? Would you shame your husband worse than his enemies did?”