The Red Queen Read online

  “March on,” Jasper says quietly. “For God and the Tudors.”

  I think that Henry will cry when we get to the little fishing port of Tenby and Jasper swings him down to the ground and then jumps down beside him. For a moment Jasper kneels, and his copper head and Henry’s brown curls are very close. Then Jasper straightens up and says, “Like a Tudor, eh, Henry?” and my little boy looks up to his uncle and says, “Like a Tudor, sir!” and solemnly the two of them clasp hands. Jasper claps him on the back so hard as to nearly knock him off his little feet, and then turns to me.

  “Godspeed,” Jasper says to me. “I don’t like long farewells.”

  “Godspeed,” I say. My voice is trembling, and I don’t dare to add more before my husband and the men of the guard.

  “I’ll write,” Jasper says. “Keep the boy safe. Don’t spoil him.”

  I am so irritated by Jasper telling me how to care for my own son that I can hardly speak for a moment, but then I bite my lip. “I will.”

  Jasper turns to my husband. “Thank you for coming,” he says formally. “It is good to hand Henry over in safety, to a guardian I can trust.”

  My husband inclines his head. “Good luck,” he says quietly. “I will keep them both safe.”

  Jasper turns on his heel and is about to walk away when he checks, turns back to Henry, and sweeps him up for a quick, hard hug. When he puts the little boy gently down, I see that Jasper’s blue eyes are filled with tears. Then he takes the reins of his horse and leads it carefully and quietly onto the ramp to the boat. A dozen men go with him; the rest wait with us. I glance at their faces and see their aghast look, as their lord and commander shouts to the master of the ship that he can cast off.

  They throw the lines to the ship; they raise the sail. At first it seems as if it is not moving at all, but then the sails flap and quiver and the wind and the force of the tide slides the ship from the little stone quayside. I step forwards and put my hand on my little son’s shoulder; he is trembling like a foal. He does not turn his head at my touch; he is straining his eyes to see the last possible sight of his guardian. Only when the ship is a little distant dot at sea does he take a shuddering breath and drop his head and I feel his shoulders heave with a sob.

  “Would you like to ride before me?” I ask him quietly. “You can sit up before me like you did with Jasper.”

  He looks up at me. “No thank you, my lady,” he says.

  I devote myself to my son in the following weeks that we spend at Pembroke Castle. An armed band, little better than brigands, is threatening the road to England, and my husband decides that we are safer waiting at Pembroke for them to move on, than to ride out and risk meeting them. So I sit with little Henry when he takes his lessons from the tutor that Jasper has employed, I ride with him in the morning, I watch him as he jousts at the little quintain that Jasper had built for him in the field behind the stables. We ride to the river together, and we go out in a fishing boat and have the servants build a fire on the beach so we can eat our catch roasted on sticks. I give him toys and a book and a new pony of his own. I personally transcribe his prayers for the day into English, in a better translation from the Latin. I play catch and cards with him. I sing nursery rhymes with him, and I read to him in French. I put him to bed and spend the evening planning what he might like to do the next day. I wake him in the morning with a smile. I never discipline him—I let his tutor do that. I never send him to change his clothes or scold him for getting dirty—I let his nurse do that. To him, I am a perfect playmate, always happy, always ready for a game, happy to let him name the game, happy to let him win; and every night he kneels at his bedside in prayer, and I kneel beside him. And every night, whatever we have done during the day, however carefree he seems to have been, he prays God to send his uncle Jasper home to him so that they can be happy again.

  “Why do you still miss Jasper so much?” I ask him, as I tuck him up. I make sure my voice is light, almost indifferent.

  His little face brightens against the white linen pillow. He beams at the thought of his uncle. “He is my lord,” he says simply. “I am going to ride out with him when I am big enough. We are going to bring peace to England, and when that is done, we are going on crusade together. We will never be parted. I shall swear fealty to him and be the son that he does not have. He is my lord. I am his man.”

  “But I am your mother,” I remark. “I am here to take care of you now.”

  “Jasper and I love you,” he says cheerfully. “We say you are our guiding light. And we always pray for you, and for my father Edmund too.”

  “But I am here now,” I insist. “And Edmund never even saw you. He hardly counts, it is not the same at all. Jasper is in exile; I am the only one here now.”

  He turns his little head, his eyelids are drooping, dark eyelashes brushing his pink cheeks. “My uncle, Lord Pembroke, is glad to have you at his castle,” he says quietly. “We are both glad to welcome …”

  He is asleep. I turn and find my husband leaning silently against the stone doorway. “Did you hear that?” I ask him. “All he thinks about is Jasper. He prays for me as he does for his father, who was dead before he was born. I am as distant as the queen to him.”

  My husband puts out an arm to me, and I am glad for the comfort. I rest my head on his chest and feel him hold me.

  “He’s a bright boy,” he says soothingly. “You have to give him time to get to know you. He has lived with Jasper for so long that the man fills his world. He has to learn about you. It will come. Be patient. And besides, it is no disadvantage to be as the queen to him. You are his mother, not his nursemaid. Why not be his guiding light, the one who commands him? He has learned from Jasper to adore you from afar. He understands that. Why would you want to be anything else?

  AUTUMN 1461

  We are wakened by the clanging of the tocsin, and I jump out of bed, throw on a gown, and run to the nursery. My boy is pulling on his breeches and shouting for his boots. The mistress of the nursery looks up as I come in. “My lady? D’you know what it is?”

  I shake my head and look out of the window. The portcullis is coming down with a speedy clatter; the guards and the grooms of the stables are spilling out of their living quarters and shouting. Among the men I see my husband moving quietly and steadily towards the guard tower that overlooks the gate.

  “I’m going down,” I say.

  “I’ll come! I’ll come!” my son pipes. “I need my sword.”

  “You don’t need your sword,” I say. “But you can come if you promise to stay with me.”

  “May I come with the little earl, please, m’lady?” his nurse asks. I know she thinks that I won’t be able to make him stay beside me, and I flush with irritation; but I nod, and the three of us run down the stone stairs, across the yard, and up the narrow stairs to the tower, where my husband and the captain of the guard are looking over the battlements to where the flag of William Herbert is fluttering over a small army of his men, trotting along the road.

  “God be with us,” I whisper.

  Henry drags his nurse to the farthest corner of the tower, where he can look down on the drawbridge being hauled up.

  My husband smiles at me. “I doubt we are in danger,” he says gently. “I have no doubt that Herbert has been given this castle, and perhaps the earldom too. He has only come to claim his own. We are his unexpected guests.”

  “What will we do?”

  “Hand it over to him.”

  “Hand it over to him?” I am so shocked at my husband’s traitorous plan that I stare at him, my mouth agape. “Just give him the keys? Of Jasper’s castle? Just open the doors and invite him to dine?”

  “He might ask us to dine,” my husband corrects me. “If, as I think, that this is his castle now.”

  “You cannot intend to just let him in.”

  “Of course I do,” he says. “If King Edward has given him the castle and the command of Wales, then we are behaving as loyal citizens should by