The White Queen Read online

  I hear the clatter of a cavalry charge and some shouting. I start to wonder: If I had armed the city against him, declared war in the first moment, could I have stood against him now? But then I think: And what about my boy Edward in his uncle’s train? What about my brother Anthony and my son Richard Grey, held hostage for my good behavior? And yet again: perhaps I have nothing to fear. I simply don’t know. My boy is either a young king, processing in high honor to his coronation, or a kidnapped child. I don’t even know which for sure.

  I go to bed with that question haunting me like the beating of a drum. I lie down in my clothes and I do not sleep at all. I know that somewhere, not far from me tonight, my son is lying sleepless too. I am restless, like a woman tormented, to be with him, to see him, to tell him that he is safe with me again. I cannot believe, daughter of Melusina as I am, that I cannot squeeze through the bars of the windows and simply swim to him. He is my boy: perhaps he is afraid, maybe he is in danger. How can I not be with him?

  But I have to lie still and wait for the sky to turn from deepest black to gray in the small panes of the window before I allow myself to rise up and walk down the crypt to the door and open the spy hole to look out and see the quiet streets. Then, I realize that no one has armed to protect my boy Edward, no one is going to rescue him, no one is going to liberate me. They may have booed as the lord protector marched in at the head of his army with my son in his train, they may have raised a little riot and fought a little running scrap; but they are not arming this morning and storming his castle. Last night, I was the only one in all of London wakeful, worrying about the little king for all the long hours.

  The city is waiting to see what the lord protector will do. Everything hinges on this. Is Richard, Duke of Gloucester, the beloved loyal brother of the late king, going to fulfill his brother’s dying command and put his son on the throne? Is he, loyal as ever, going to play his part as lord protector and guard his nephew till the day of his coronation? Or is Richard, Duke of Gloucester, false as any Yorkist, going to take the power his brother gave him, disinherit his nephew, and put the crown on his own head, and name his own son Prince of Wales? Nobody knows what Duke Richard might do, and many—as always—want only to be on the winning side. Everyone will have to wait and see. Only I would strike him down now, if I could. Just to be on the side of safety.

  I go to the low windows and I stare down at the river which flows by so close that I could almost lean out and touch it. There is a boat with armed men at the water gate to the abbey. They are guarding me and keeping my allies from me. Any friends who try to come to me will be turned away.

  “He will take the crown,” I say quietly to the river, to Melusina, to my mother. They listen to me in the flow of the waters. “If I had to put my fortune on it I would do so. He will take the crown. All the York men are sick with ambition and Richard, Duke of Gloucester, is no different. Edward risked his life, year after year, fighting for his throne. George put his head in a vat of wine rather than promise never to claim it. Now Richard rides into London at the head of thousands of armed men. He is not doing that for the benefit of his nephew. He will claim the crown for himself. He is a prince of York. He cannot help but do it. He will find a hundred reasons to do so, and years from now people will still be arguing over what he does today. But my bet is he will take the crown because he cannot stop himself, any more than George could stop being a fool or Edward stop being a hero. Richard will take the crown and he will put me and mine aside.

  I pause for a moment of honesty. “And it is my nature to fight for my own,” I say. “I shall be ready for him. I shall be ready for the worst that he might do. I shall prepare myself to lose my son Richard Grey and my dearest brother Anthony, as I have already lost my father and my brother John. These are hard times, sometimes too hard for me. But this morning, I am ready. I will fight for my son and for his inheritance.”

  Just as I am certain of my determination, there is a visitor at the sanctuary gate, an anxious tappety tap, and then another. I walk towards the big barred door very slowly, stamping down my fear with each footstep. I open the spy hole and there is the whore Elizabeth Shore, a hood drawn up to hide her bright-gold hair and her eyes red from weeping. Through the grille she can see my white face like a prisoner glaring out at her. “What do you want?” I ask coldly.

  She starts at my voice. Perhaps she thought I still keep an equerry of the household and a dozen grooms of the chamber to open my door. “Your Grace!”

  “The same. What do you want, Shore?”

  She disappears altogether as she curtseys so deeply that she sinks below the sight of the grille in the door, and I have a moment when I see the comical aspect of this as she rises up again like a pale moon on the horizon, into my vision. “I am come with gifts, Your Grace,” she says clearly. Then she drops her voice. “And news. Please admit me, for the king’s own sake.”

  My temper flares as she dares to mention him, then I consider that she seems to think herself still in his service and that I am still his wife, and I draw back the bolts of the door and slam them quickly shut as she darts inside like a frightened cat.

  “What?” I ask flatly. “What do you mean by coming here? Unbidden?” She comes no further into my sanctuary than the cold step of the door. She puts down a basket that she has carried like a kitchen maid. I quickly note the cured ham and the roasted chicken.

  “I come from Sir William Hastings, with his greeting and the assurance of his loyalty,” she says in a rush.

  “Oh, have you changed keepers? Are you his whore now?”

  She looks me directly in the face and I have to stop myself gasping at her proud beauty. She is gray-eyed and fair-haired. She looks like I did, twenty years ago. She looks like my daughter Elizabeth of York: a cool English beauty, a rose of England. I could hate her for this, but I find I do not. I think that twenty years ago if Edward had been married, I would have been no better than her, and become his whore rather than never know him at all.

  My son Thomas Grey comes out from the shadows of the crypt behind me and bows to her as if she were a lady. She slides a quick small smile to him as if they are good friends who need no words.

  “Yes, I am Sir William’s whore now,” she concurs quietly. “The late king sent my husband abroad and he annulled our marriage. My family will not have me home. I am without protection now that the king is dead. Sir William Hastings offered me a home and I am glad to find some safety with him.”

  I nod. “And so?”

  “He asks me to be his envoy to you. He cannot come to you himself—he fears the Duke Richard’s spies. But he tells you to be hopeful and that he thinks all will be well.”

  “And why should I trust you?”

  Thomas steps forward. “Listen to her, Lady Mother,” he says gently. “She loved your husband truly and she is a most honorable lady. She won’t come with false counsel.”

  “You go in,” I say harshly to him. “I will deal with this woman.” I turn to her. “Your new protector has been my enemy since he first set eyes on me,” I say roughly. “I don’t see why we would be friends now. He brought Duke Richard down on us, and supports him still.”

  “He thought he was defending the young king,” she says. “He was thinking of nothing but the young king’s safety. He wants you to know this, and to know that he thinks all will be well.”

  “Oh does he?” I am impressed, despite the messenger. Hastings is loyal to my husband in death as in life. If he thinks things will be all right, if he is convinced of the safety of my son, then everything might come right. “Why is he so confident?”

  She steps a little closer, so that she can whisper. “The young king has been housed at the Bishop’s Palace,” she says. “Just nearby. But the Privy Council agree that he should be housed in the royal apartments in the Tower and everything be made ready for his coronation. He is to take his place at once as the new King of England.”

  “Duke Richard will crown him?”

  S