The White Princess Read online

  My coronation is the signal for a rash of betrothals, as Henry, in his methodical way, exploits my sisters one by one as players for the House of Tudor, and makes political matches to his own advantage. Even my mother is brought into play again. He allows me to visit her at Bermondsey with my sisters, and take her the news that she is so far forgiven by the Tudors that they have revived the idea of her marriage, and she is to go to James III of Scotland.

  I am afraid that the abbey will be cold and unwelcoming but I find my mother before a roaring fire of applewood, which gives a smoky scent to her presence chamber, my half sister, Grace, seated beside her, and two ladies-in-waiting working on their sewing.

  My mother rises up as I come in with my sisters and kisses us all. “How lovely to see you.” She curtseys to me. “I should have said “Your Grace.’ ” She steps back to see me. “You look very well.”

  She holds open her arms for Bridget and Catherine, who rush to hug her, and she smiles at Anne over their bobbing heads. “And you, Cecily, what a pretty gown, and what a fine brooch in your bonnet. Your husband is kind to you?”

  “He is,” Cecily says stiffly, well aware of the suspicions against my mother. “And he is very highly regarded by His Grace the King and My Lady the King’s Mother. He is famous for his loyalty, and so am I.”

  My mother smiles as if it does not matter much to her either way, and sits back down again, drawing my little sisters, seven-year-old Bridget and eight-year-old Catherine, onto her knee. Anne takes a footstool beside them and my mother rests her hand on her shoulder and looks expectantly at me.

  “We’re to be married!” Catherine bursts out, unable to wait any longer. “All of us but Bridget.”

  “Because I am a bride of Christ,” Bridget says, solemn as a moppet can be.

  “Of course you are.” My mother gives her a hug. “And who are the lucky men to be? Staunch Tudors, I expect?”

  Cecily bristles at the reference to her husband. “You’re betrothed as well,” she says spitefully.

  My mother is completely unmoved. “James of Scotland again?” she asks me, smiling.

  I realize that she knows of this already. Her spy network must still be in place and serving her as well here, where she is supposed to be isolated and secluded, as it did in the royal court where she was supposed to be surrounded by loyalists.

  “You knew?”

  “I knew the king had sent ambassadors to Scotland and was forging a peace with them,” she says smoothly. “Of course he would make it binding with a wedding. And since he had thought of me earlier, I imagined he would return to the plan.”

  “Do you mind?” I ask urgently. “Because if you want to refuse, I could perhaps . . .”

  Gently she reaches forwards and takes my hand. “I don’t think you could,” she says. “If you can’t prevent him from keeping your cousin Edward in the Tower, nor persuade him that I need not be behind these walls, then I doubt you can influence his policy with Scotland. He has made you queen, but though you carry the scepter, you have no power.”

  “That’s what I always say,” Cecily adds. “She can’t do anything.”

  “Then I am sure you are right.” My mother smiles at her. To me she says quietly: “And you should not reproach yourself. I know you do the best that you can. A woman always has only as much power as she can win, and you are not married into a family which trusts you with authority.”

  “But I am to be married to a Scottish prince!” Catherine squeaks, unable to hold back the news any longer. “The younger one. So I shall go to Scotland with you, Lady Mother, and I can be in your rooms, I can be your lady-in-waiting.”

  “Ah, how glad I shall be to have you with me.” My mother leans forward and drops a kiss on Catherine’s white-lace-capped head. “It will be so much easier if we are together. And we can make great state visits to your sister. We can ride to London in a procession and she can put on a banquet for us royal ladies of Scotland.”

  “And I am to marry the heir, the next King of Scotland,” Anne says quietly. She is less exuberant than Catherine. At twelve she knows well enough that to marry your country’s enemy in an attempt to hold him to an alliance is no great treat.

  My mother looks at her with silent compassion. “Well, we will all be together, that’s one good thing,” she says. “And I can advise you, and help you. And to be a queen of Scotland is no small part to play, Anne.”

  “What about me?” Bridget asks.

  My mother’s gaze flicks to my face. “Perhaps you will be allowed to come with me to Scotland,” she says. “I would think the king would grant that.”

  “And if not, I’ll come here,” Bridget says with satisfaction, looking round at my mother’s beautiful rooms.

  “I thought you wanted to be a nun,” Cecily says crushingly. “Not live like a pope.”

  My mother giggles. “Oh Cecily, d’you really think I live like a pope? How quite wonderful. Do you think I have rooms full of hidden cardinals who serve me? And eat off gold plates?”

  She gets to her feet and puts out her hands to the two little ones. “Come, Cecily reminds me that we must go and dine. You can say grace for the Sisters, Bridget.”

  As we go out she draws me close to her. “Don’t fret,” she says quietly. “There are many slips between a betrothal and a wedding, and holding the Scots to a peace treaty is a miracle that I have yet to witness. Nobody is riding up the Great North Road just yet.”

  PALACE OF SHEEN, RICHMOND, SPRING 1488

  My uncle Edward comes home from the crusades as brown as a Moor himself, but missing all his front teeth. He’s cheerful about this and says that God can now see more clearly into his heart, but it gives him a lisp that I cannot help but find comical. I am so pleased to see him that I fall into his arms and hear him sweetly lisp over my head, “Bleth you, bleth you!” and this makes me laugh and cry at once.

  I expect him to be appalled at the news that his sister is enclosed at Bermondsey, but his shrug and smile tell me that he sees this as a temporary setback in a life which has been filled with defeats and victories. “Is she comfortable?” he asks, as if it is the only question.

  “Yes, she has lovely rooms and she’s well served. Clearly, they all adore her,” I reply. “Grace is with her, and the porteress calls her ‘the queen’ as if nothing had changed.”

  “Then she will no doubt organize her life just as she wants,” he says. “She usually does.”

  He is full of news of the crusade in Granada, of the beauty and elegance of the Moorish empire, of the determination of the Christian kings to drive the Moors completely from Spain. And he tells me stories about the Portuguese court, and their adventures. They are exploring far south down the coast of Afric, and he says there are mines of gold there, and markets full of spices, and a treasure house of ivory to be picked up by anyone who dares to go far enough as the sky gets hotter and the seas more stormy. There is a kingdom where the fields are made of gold and any man can have a fortune if he picks up the pebbles. There are strange animals and rare beasts—he has seen the hides, spotted and striped and gold as a noble—and perhaps there is a place ruled by a white Christian in the very heart of the great land, perhaps there is a kingdom of black men, devoted to a white Christian hero called Prester John.

  Henry has no interest in news of magical kingdoms, but he takes Uncle Edward into his privy chamber the minute he arrives and they are locked together for half a day before Edward comes out with his toothless grin and Henry’s arm around his shoulders and I know that whatever he has reported, it has set Henry’s anxious mind at rest.

  Henry trusts him so much that he is to lead a defense of Brittany. “When will you go?” I ask him.

  “Almost at once,” he says. “There’s no time to lose and—” he grins his toothless smile “—I like to be busy.”

  I take him immediately to the nursery at Eltham Palace to show him how much Arthur has grown. He can stand up now and walk alongside a chair or a stool. His greatest pleas