The White Queen: A Novel Read online

  She links her arm in mine as she used to do when we were girls at Grafton and we drift over to the window to look out at the sluggish water. “They are saying you were married by witchcraft,” she says, her lips hardly moving. “And they are finding someone to swear that Edward was married to another woman before you.”

  I meet her frowning gaze. “It’s an old scandal. It doesn’t trouble me.”

  “Please. Listen. I may not be able to come again. My husband grows in power and importance. I think he will send me away to the country, and I cannot disobey him. Listen to me. They have Robert Stillington, the Bishop of Bath and Wells—”

  “But he is our man,” I interrupt, forgetting that there is no “us” anymore.

  “He was your man. Not anymore. He was Edward’s chancellor, but now he is the duke’s great friend. He assures him, as he told George, Duke of Clarence, that Edward was married to Dame Eleanor Butler before he was married to you, and that she had his legitimate son.”

  I turn my face away. This is the price I pay for having an incontinent husband. “In truth, I think he promised her marriage,” I whisper. “He may even have gone through a ceremony with her. Anthony always thought so.”

  “That’s not all.”

  “What more?”

  “They are saying that Edward the king was not even his father’s son. He was a bastard foisted on his father.”

  “That scandal again?”

  “That again.”

  “And who is serving up these cold old meats?”

  “It is the Duke Richard, and my husband, talking everywhere. But worse, I think the king’s mother Cecily is ready to confess in public that your husband was a bastard. I think she will do it to put her son Richard on the throne—and your son to one side. Duke Richard and my husband are claiming everywhere that your husband was a bastard, and his son too. That makes Duke Richard the next true heir.”

  I nod. Of course. Of course. Then we will be banished into exile and Duke Richard becomes King Richard and his whey-faced son takes my handsome boy’s place.

  “And worst of all,” she whispers, “the duke suspects you of raising your own army. He has warned the council that you plan to destroy him and all the old lords of England. And so he has sent to York for men loyal to him. He is bringing an army of northerners down on us.”

  I feel my grip on her arm tighten. “I am raising my people,” I confirm. “I have my plans. When do the men from the north arrive?”

  “He has just sent for them,” she says. “They cannot be here for a few days yet. Perhaps a week, perhaps more. Are you ready to rise now?”

  “No,” I breathe. “Not yet.”

  “I don’t know what you can do from here. Had you not better come out and go before the Privy Council yourself? Do any of the lords or Privy Council come to you? Do you have a plan?”

  I nod. “Be sure we have plans. I shall get Edward released, and I shall smuggle my boy Richard away to safety at once. I am bribing the guards at the Tower to free Edward. He has good men about him. I can trust them to look the other way. My Grey son Thomas is going to escape from here. He will go to Sheriff Hutton to rescue his brother Richard Grey and his uncle Anthony, and then they will arm and come back and release us all. They will raise our people. We will win this.”

  “You will get the boys away first?”

  “Edward planned our escapes years ago, before they were even born. I swore I would keep the boys safe, whatever happened. Remember we came to the throne through such battles; he never thought we were safe. We were always prepared for danger. Even if Richard would not hurt them, I cannot have him holding them and telling the world they are bastards. Our brother Sir Edward will bring in the fleet to attack Duke Richard, and one of the ships will take the boys to Margaret in Flanders and they will be safe there.”

  She grips my elbow and her face is white. “Dearest…oh Elizabeth! Dear God! You don’t know?”

  “What? What now?”

  “Our brother Edward is lost. His fleet mutinied against him in favor of the lord protector.”

  For a moment I am numb with shock. “Edward?” I turn to her and grip her hands. “Is he dead? Have they killed our brother Edward?”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t know for sure. I don’t think anyone knows. Certainly he is not proclaimed dead. He was not executed.”

  “Who turned the men against him?”

  “Thomas Howard.” She names the rising nobleman who has joined Richard’s cause hoping for profit and place. “He went among the fleet. They were doubtful at putting to sea anyway. They turned against the Rivers command. Our family is hated by many of the common people.”

  “Lost,” I say. Still I cannot take in the enormity of our defeat. “We have lost Edward, and lost the fleet, and lost the treasure he was carrying,” I whisper. “I was counting on him to rescue us. He was going to come up the river and take us to safety. And the treasure would have bought us an army in Flanders and paid our supporters here. And the fleet was to bombard London and take it from the river.”

  She hesitates, and then, as if my despair had brought her to a decision, she puts her hand inside her cape and brings out a scrap of thread, a corner of a kerchief. She gives it to me.

  “What’s this?”

  “It is a scrap I cut from Duke Richard’s napkin when he dined with my husband,” she says. “He held it in his right hand; he wiped his mouth.” She lowers her voice and her eyes. She was always frightened of our mother’s powers. She never wanted to learn any of our skills. “I thought you could use it,” she says. “I thought perhaps you might use it.” She hesitates. “You have to stop the Duke of Gloucester. He grows in power every day. I thought you might make him sick.”

  “You cut this from the duke’s napkin?” I ask incredulously. Katherine always hated any sort of conjuring; she would never even have her fortune told by the gypsies at the fair.

  “It is for Anthony,” she whispers fiercely. “I am so afraid for our brother Anthony. You will keep the boys safe, I know. You will get them away. But the duke has Anthony in his power, and both my husband and the duke hate him so much. They envy him for his learning and his bravery and because he is so beloved, and they are afraid of him, and I love him so much. You have to stop the duke, Elizabeth. Truly you do. You have to save Anthony.”

  I whisk it into my sleeve so that no one, not even the children, can see it. “Leave this with me,” I say. “Don’t even think about it. You have too honest a face, Katherine. Everyone will know what I am doing if you don’t put it right out of your mind.”

  She gives a nervous giggle. “I never could lie.”

  “Forget everything about it.”

  We walk back to the front door. “Go with God,” I say to her. “And pray for me and our boys.”

  The smile drains from her face. “These are dark days for us Riverses,” she says. “I pray you keep your children safe, sister, and yourself.”

  “He will be sorry that he started this,” I predict. For a moment I pause, for suddenly, like a vision, I see Richard looking as young as a lost boy, staggering in the midst of a battlefield, his great sword slack in his weakened hand. He is looking around for friends, and he has none. He is looking around for his horse, but his horse has gone. He is trying to summon his strength, but he has none. The shock on his face would make anyone pity him.

  The moment passes and Katherine touches my hand. “What is it? What do you see?”

  “I see that he will be sorry that he started this,” I say quietly. “It will be the end of him and his house.”

  “And us?” she asks, peering into my face, as if she could see what I had seen. “Anthony? And all of us?”

  “And us too, I am afraid.”

  That night when it is midnight and dark as dark, I get up from my bed and take the scrap of linen that Katherine gave me. I see the smear of food where the duke wiped his lips and I bring it to my nose and sniff at it. Meat, I think, though he is an abstemious eater and