The Kingmaker's Daughter Read online

  I flinch at the thought that my father is not at peace. ‘Ah don’t, Iz,’ I say hastily. ‘I pay enough for masses to be said for his soul in every one of our churches. Don’t say such things. Look, I’ll leave you to rest. The birthing ale has gone to your head. You shouldn’t say such things and I won’t hear them. I am married to a loyal brother of the king and so are you. Let that be the truth. Anything else will only lead us into danger and defeat. Anything else is a sword through the heart.’

  We don’t mention the conversation again and when I leave them, and George himself helps me onto my horse, thanking me for caring for Isabel in her time, I wish him every happiness and that the child grows strong and well.

  ‘Perhaps she will have a boy next time,’ he says. His handsome face is discontented, his charm quite overshadowed by such a setback, his smiling mouth is downturned. He is as sulky as a spoiled child.

  For a moment I want to remind him that she had a boy, a beautiful baby boy, a boy who would have been the son and heir that he now wants so badly, a boy who would have been running around the hall now, a sturdy three-year-old with his nursemaid hurrying behind him; but that Iz was so shaken by the pounding waves on board my father’s ship that she could not give birth to him, and she had no-one but me as a midwife, and the baby’s little coffin was slipped into the grey heaving seas.

  ‘Perhaps next time,’ I say soothingly. ‘But she is a very pretty girl, and feeding well and growing strong.’

  ‘Stronger than your boy?’ he asks nastily. ‘What d’you call him: Edward? Was that in memory of your dead husband? Funny sort of tribute.’

  ‘Edward for the king of course,’ I say, biting my lip.

  ‘And is our baby stronger than yours?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’ It hurts me to say the truth but little Margaret is a wiry hungry baby and is doing well at once, and my baby is quiet, and is not thriving.

  He shrugs. ‘Well, it makes no odds. A girl’s no good. A girl can’t take the throne,’ he says, turning away. I can hardly hear, but I am sure that is what he says. For a moment I think to challenge him, to dare him to repeat it, and warn him that this is to talk treason. But then I gather my reins in my cold hands and think better that he had never said it. Better that I never heard it. Better go home.

  BAYNARD’S CASTLE, LONDON, SUMMER 1473

  I meet Richard in Baynard’s Castle, his family’s London home, and to my relief the court is away from London and the city is peaceful. Elizabeth the queen has gone to Shrewsbury for the birth of her baby, another boy, the second son that Isabel feared, and the doting king is with her. Without doubt they will be joyfully celebrating the birth of another boy to give certainty to their line. It makes no difference to me if she has one boy more or twenty – Richard is three steps from the throne, a fourth step makes little odds, but I cannot help a twinge of irritation at her constant fertility which serves her so well.

  They are calling him Richard, in honour of his grandfather and his uncle, my husband. Richard is pleased for them; his love for his brother means he delights in his success. I am only pleased that they are far away in Shrewsbury and I am not summoned with the rest of the ladies to hang over the crib and congratulate her on another strong son. I wish her and her newborn son well, just as I wish any woman in childbed well. I really don’t want to see her in her triumph.

  The rest of the lords and courtiers have gone to their lands for the summer, nobody wants to be in London during the hot plague months, so Richard and I will not stay long before we go on the long journey north to Middleham together, to see our baby again.

  The day we are due to leave, I go to tell Richard that I will be ready within the hour, and find his presence chamber door is closed. This is the room where Richard hears petitions and applications for his judgement or generosity; the door always stands open as a symbol of his good lordship. It is his throne room, which is always visible so that people can see the youngest son of York about his business of ruling the kingdom. I open the door and go in. The inner door to his privy chamber is closed too. I go to turn the handle, and then I pause at the sound of a familiar voice.

  His brother George Duke of Clarence is in there with my husband, talking very quietly and very persuasively. My hand drops from the ring of the handle and I stand still to listen.

  ‘Since he is not a true son of our father, and since their marriage was undoubtedly brought about by witchcraft . . .’

  ‘This? Again?’ Richard interrupts his brother scornfully. ‘Again? He has two handsome sons – one newly born this very month – and three healthy daughters against your dead boy and puling girl, and you say his marriage is not blessed by God? Surely, George, even you can see the evidence is against you?’

  ‘I say they are all bastards. He and Elizabeth Woodville are not married in the sight of God, and their children are all bastards.’

  ‘And you are the only fool in London who says it.’

  ‘Many say it. Your wife’s father said it.’

  ‘For malice. And those who are not malicious are all fools.’

  A chair scrapes on the wooden floor. ‘Do you call me a fool?’

  ‘Lord, yes,’ Richard says scornfully. ‘To your face. A treacherous fool, if you like. A malicious fool if you insist. Do you think that we don’t know that you are meeting with Oxford? With every fool who still carries a grudge though Edward has done everything he can to settle with the embittered placemen who lost their positions? With the Lancastrians who rode against him? With every leftover out-of-place Lancaster follower that you can find? With every disgruntled squire? Sending secret messages to the French? D’you think we don’t know all that you do, and more?’

  ‘Edward knows?’ George’s voice has lost its bluster as if he has been winded. ‘You said “we know”? What does Edward know? What have you told him?’

  ‘’Course he knows. Assume he knows everything. Will he do anything? He won’t. Would I? In a moment. Because I have no patience with hidden enmity and I prefer to strike early and quick. But Edward loves you as only a kind brother could, and he has more patience than I can muster. But, brother mine, you bring me no news when you come here to tell me you have been a traitor before and you could be one again. That much I know already. That much we all know.’

  ‘I didn’t come here for that. Just to say . . .’

  Again I hear the scrape of a chair as someone leaps to his feet and then Richard’s raised voice: ‘What does that say? Read it aloud! What does it say?’

  Without opening the door to see him, I know that Richard will be pointing to his motto, carved in the massive wooden chimney breast.

  ‘For God’s sake!’

  ‘Loyauté me lie,’ Richard quotes. ‘Loyalty binds me. You wouldn’t understand such a thing, but I am sworn heart and soul to my brother Edward the king. I believe in the order of chivalry, I believe in God and the king and that they are one and the same thing and my honour is bound to both. Don’t you even dare to question me. My beliefs are beyond your imagining.’

  ‘All I am saying,’ now George’s voice is a persuasive whine, ‘all I am saying is that there are questions about the king and questions about the queen and that if we are legitimate and he is not, then perhaps we should divide the kingdom, fairly – as you and I divided the Neville inheritance – and rule jointly. He has all but given you the North, he has allowed you to rule it almost as a principality. Why can’t he give me the Midlands in the same way, and he can keep the south? Prince Edward has Wales. What is this if not fair?’

  There is a moment’s silence. I know that Richard will be tempted by the thought of a kingdom of the North, and him as its ruler. I take one tiny step closer to the door. I pray that he will resist temptation, say no to his brother, cleave to the king. Pray God that he does nothing to bring the enmity of the queen down on our heads.

  ‘It’s to carve up the kingdom that he won in a fair fight,’ Richard says bluntly. ‘He won his kingdom entire, by force of arms in honourable b