The Kingmaker's Daughter Read online

  ‘Why don’t we have to?’

  ‘Edward said we could be excused.’

  I ask the question that matters more and more at the court in these days. ‘What about Her? Will She mind?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Her son Thomas Grey is to be one challenger, her brother is the first knight. The Rivers are in full flood. She won’t much care whether we are there or not.’

  ‘Why did Edward say you could be excused?’ I hear the caution in my own voice. We are all afraid of everything at court now.

  Richard rises and takes off his robe, pulls back the covers and gets into bed beside me. ‘Because he sees that I am sick to my heart at George’s imprisonment, and sick with fear at what might come next,’ he says. ‘He has no stomach for merrymaking either when our brother is in the Tower of London and the Queen of England is pressing for his death. Hold me, Anne. I am cold to my bones.’

  WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON, JANUARY 1478

  They keep George in the Tower without trial, without visitors, in comfortable rooms – but he is imprisoned as a traitor for the rest of the year. Not until January does the queen finally get her way and persuade the king to bring him before the court and charge him with treason. The Rivers adherents have got hold of the jurors at the trial of Ankarette the poisoner, and persuaded them to say that they thought her innocent all along, even while they sent her to the gallows. My sister, they now declare, died quite naturally of the consequences of childbirth. Suddenly, Isabel had childbed fever, though when they were last consulted, they swore she was poisoned. They now say that George exceeded his authority in charging Ankarette and acted like a king himself, in having her executed, they say that he presumed on the royal state, they make him a traitor for punishing the murderer of his own wife. In one brilliant move they have hidden the murder, hidden the murderer the queen, exonerated her instrument, and shifted the blame for everything onto George.

  The queen is everywhere in this matter, advising the king, warning of danger, complaining very sweetly that George cannot serve as a judge and an executioner in his town of Warwick, suggesting that this is practically a usurpation. If he will order a jury, if he will command an execution, where will he stop? Should he not be stopped? And finally?

  Finally the king is driven into agreement with her and he himself undertakes the work of prosecuting his brother, and nobody – not one single man – speaks in George’s defence. Richard comes home after the last day of the hearing with his shoulders bowed and his face dark. His mother and I meet him in the great hall and he takes us into his privy chamber and closes the door on the interested faces of our household.

  ‘Edward has accused him of trying to destroy the royal family and their claim to the throne.’ Richard glances at his mother. ‘It’s proven that George told everyone that the king was base-born – a bastard. I am sorry, Lady Mother.’

  She waves it away. ‘This is an old slander.’ She looks at me. ‘This is Warwick’s old lie. Blame him, if anybody.’

  ‘And they have proof that George’s men were paid to go round the country saying that Thomas Burdett was innocent, and was murdered by the king for foretelling his death. Edward heard the evidence for that and it was good. George certainly hired people to speak against the king. George says that the king is using black arts – everyone supposes this is to accuse the queen of witchcraft. Finally, and almost worst of all: George has been taking money from Louis of France to create a rebellion against Edward. He was going to mount a rebellion and take the throne.’

  ‘He would not,’ his mother says simply.

  ‘They had letters from Louis of France addressed to him.’

  ‘Forgeries,’ she says,

  Richard sighs. ‘Who knows? Not I. I am afraid, Lady Mother, that some of it – actually, most of it – is true. George hired a tenant’s son and put him in the place of his own son, Edward of Warwick. He was sending young Edward to Flanders for safekeeping.’

  I draw a breath. This is Isabel’s son, my nephew, sent to Flanders to keep him safe. ‘Why didn’t he send him to us?’

  ‘He says he did not dare to let the boy stay in England, and the queen’s malice would be his death. They cited this as evidence of his plotting.’

  ‘Where is Edward now?’ I ask.

  ‘The child is in danger from the queen,’ his grandmother says. ‘That’s not proof of George’s guilt, it is proof of the queen’s guilt.’

  Richard answers me: ‘Edward’s spies arrested the boy at the port as he was about to take ship, and took him back to Warwick Castle.’

  ‘Where is he now?’ I repeat.

  ‘At Warwick, with Margaret, his sister.’

  ‘You must speak with your brother the king,’ Duchess Cecily tells Richard. ‘You must tell him that Elizabeth Woodville is the destruction of this family. There is no doubt in my mind that she poisoned Isabel, and that she will destroy George too. You have to make Edward see that. You have to save George, you have to safeguard his children. Edward is your nephew. If he is not safe in England you have to protect him.’

  Richard turns to his mother. ‘Forgive me,’ he says. ‘I have tried. But the queen has Edward in thrall, he won’t listen to me any more. I cannot advise him. I cannot advise him against Her.’

  The duchess walks the length of the room, her head bowed. For the first time she looks like an old woman, exhausted by sorrow. ‘Will Edward pass the death sentence on his own brother?’ she asks. ‘Am I to lose George as I lost your brother Edmund? To a dishonourable death? Will She have his head set on a spike? Is England ruled by another she-wolf as bad as Margaret of Anjou? Does Edward forget who his friends are, his brothers?’

  Richard shakes his head. ‘I don’t know. He has removed me from my place as Steward of England, so that I don’t have to rule on the death sentence.’

  She is alert at once. ‘Who is the new steward?’

  ‘The Duke of Buckingham. He will do as his Rivers wife tells him. Will you go to Edward? Will you appeal to him?’

  ‘Of course,’ she says. ‘I will go to one beloved son to beg for the life of another. I shouldn’t have to do this. This is the consequence of a wicked woman, an evil wife, a witch on the throne.’

  ‘Hush,’ Richard says wearily.

  ‘I will not hush. I will stand between her, and my son George. I will save him.’

  BAYNARD’S CASTLE, LONDON, FEBRUARY 1478

  We have to wait. We wait and wait from January to February. The members of both houses of parliament send delegations to beg the king to pass a sentence and finish the case against his brother one way or the other. Finally, the sentence is passed and George is found guilty of treason. The punishment for treason is death but still the king hesitates to order his brother’s execution. Nobody is allowed to see George, who appeals from his prison for the right to be tried by single combat – a chivalric resolution to a dishonourable charge. It is the final defence of an innocent man. The king, who claims to be the very flower of English chivalry, refuses. This seems to be a matter outside of honour, as well as outside of justice.

  Duchess Cecily goes as she promised to see Edward, certain that she can make him commute the death sentence into exile. When she returns to Baynard’s Castle from court, they have to help her out of her litter. She is as white as her lace collar and she can barely stand.

  ‘What happened?’ I ask her.

  She clings to my hands on the steps of her great London home. She has never reached out to me before. ‘Anne,’ is all she can say. ‘Anne.’

  I call for my ladies and between us we help her into my rooms, seat her in my chair before the fire, and give her a glass of malmsey wine. With a sudden gesture she strikes the glass away and it shatters on the stone hearth. ‘No! No!’ she screams with sudden energy. ‘Don’t bring it near me!’

  The bouquet of the sweet wine fills the room as I kneel at her feet and take her hands. I think she is raving as she shudders and cries: ‘Not the wine! Not the wine!’

  ‘La