The Kingmaker's Daughter Read online

  ‘Babies can fail very suddenly,’ I say weakly. ‘You know that.’

  ‘They say he was well at bedtime and died before dawn,’ he says.

  I shiver. ‘Babies can die in their sleep,’ I repeat. ‘God spare them.’

  ‘It’s true,’ he says. ‘But I have to know if he just fell asleep, if it is innocent. I am leaving for Warwick right now. I shall have the truth of this, and if I find that someone killed him, dripped poison into his little sleeping mouth, then I will take their life for it – whoever they are, however grand their position, however great their name, whoever they are married to. I swear it, Anne. I shall have vengeance on whoever killed my wife, especially if she killed my son too.’

  He turns for the door and I grip his arm. ‘Write to me at once,’ I whisper. ‘Send me something, fruit or something with a note to tell me. Write it in such a way that I will understand but nobody else can know. Make sure that you tell me that Margaret is safe, and Edward.’

  ‘I will,’ he promises. ‘And if I see the need I will send you a warning.’

  ‘A warning?’ I don’t want to understand his meaning.

  ‘You are in danger too, and your son is in danger. There is no doubt in my mind that this is more than an attack on me and mine. This is not an attack solely on me, though it strikes me to the heart; this is an attack on the kingmaker’s daughters and his grandsons.’

  At his naming this fear I find I am cold. I go as white as him, we are like two ghosts whispering together in the shadows of the chapel. ‘An attack on the kingmaker’s daughters?’ I repeat. ‘Why would anyone attack the kingmaker’s daughters?’ I ask, though I know the answer. ‘He has been gone six years this spring. His enemies have all forgotten.’

  ‘One enemy has not forgotten. She has two names written in blood on a piece of paper in her jewel box,’ he says. He does not need to name the ‘she’. ‘Did you know this?’

  Miserably, I nod.

  ‘Do you know whose names they are?’

  He waits for me to shake my head.

  ‘Written in blood it says: “Isabel and Anne”. Isabel is dead, I don’t doubt that she plans you will be next.’

  I am shaking in my fear. ‘For vengeance?’ I whisper.

  ‘She wants revenge for the death of her father and her brother,’ he replies. ‘She has sworn herself to it. It is her only desire. Your father took her father and his son, she has taken Isabel and her son. I don’t doubt she will kill you and your son Edward.’

  ‘Come back soon,’ I say. ‘Come back to court, George. Don’t leave me here alone at her court.’

  ‘I swear it,’ he says. He kisses my hand and is gone.

  ‘I can’t go to court,’ I say flatly to Richard, as he stands before me, in rich dark velvet, ready to ride to Westminster where we are bidden for dinner. ‘I can’t go. I swear I cannot go.’

  ‘We agreed,’ he says quietly. ‘We agreed that until we knew the truth of the rumours that you would attend court, sit with the queen when invited, behave as if nothing has happened.’

  ‘Something has happened,’ I say. ‘You will have heard that the little baby Richard is dead?’

  He nods.

  ‘He was thriving, he was born strong, and now he dies, only three months after his birth? Dies in his sleep with no cause?’

  My husband turns to the fire and pushes a log into place with his booted foot. ‘Babies die,’ he says.

  ‘Richard, I think She killed him. I can’t go to court and sit in Her rooms and feel Her watching me, wondering what I know. I can’t go to dinner and eat the food from Her kitchen. I cannot bring myself to meet Her.’

  ‘Because you hate her?’ he asks. ‘My dearest brother’s wife and the mother of his children?’

  ‘Because I am afraid of Her,’ I say. ‘And perhaps you should be too, perhaps even he should be.’

  LONDON, APRIL 1477

  George returns to London and comes at once to his mother’s house to see Richard. My ladies tell me that the brothers are together, behind closed doors in Richard’s council chamber. In a little while one of Richard’s trusted grooms of the household comes and asks me will I attend my lord. I leave my ladies to their excited speculation and walk across the great hall to Richard’s rooms.

  When I enter I am shocked at George’s appearance. He has grown even thinner during his absence, his face is lean and weary, he looks like a man who is undertaking work he can hardly bear to do. Richard glances up when I come in and holds out his hand to me. I stand beside his chair, handclasped.

  ‘George has bad news from Warwick,’ Richard says to me shortly.

  I wait.

  George’s face is grim, far older than his twenty-seven years. ‘I have found Isabel’s murderer. I have arrested her and brought her to trial. She was found guilty and put to death.’

  I feel my knees weaken, and Richard gets up from his chair and presses me into his seat. ‘You have to be brave,’ he says. ‘There is more and it is worse.’

  ‘What can be worse?’ I whisper.

  ‘I found the murderer of my son also.’ George’s voice is a hard monotone. ‘He too was found guilty by the jury that I sent him to, and was hanged. These two, at least, will be no danger to you or yours.’

  I tighten my grip on Richard’s hand.

  ‘I have been inquiring ever since Isabel’s death as to her murderer,’ George says quietly. ‘Her name was Ankarette, Ankarette Twynho, she was a maidservant in my wife’s rooms. She served Isabel’s meals, she brought her wine when she was in labour.’

  Briefly I close my eyes, thinking of Isabel accepting the service and not knowing that she was being cared for by an enemy. I knew that I should have been there. I would have seen the servant for what she was.

  ‘She was in the pay of the queen,’ he says. ‘God knows how long she has been spying on us. But when Isabel went into childbirth and was so happy and confident that it would be another boy – the queen ordered her servant to use the powders.’

  ‘Powders?’

  ‘Italian powders: poison.’

  ‘You are sure?’

  ‘I have the evidence, and the jury found her guilty and sentenced her to death.’

  ‘He has only proof that Ankarette named the queen as her employer,’ Richard intercedes. ‘We can’t be sure the queen ordered the murder.’

  ‘Who else would hurt Isabel?’ George says simply. ‘Was she not beloved, by everyone who knew her?’

  I nod blindly, my eyes filling with tears. ‘And her little boy?’

  ‘Ankarette went to Somerset as soon as Isabel was dead and her household dismissed,’ George says. ‘But she left the powders with her friend John Thursby, a groom of the household at Warwick. He gave them to the baby. The jury found them both guilty, they were both executed.’

  I give a shuddering sigh, and I look up at Richard.

  ‘You must guard yourself,’ George cautions me. ‘Eat nothing that comes from her kitchens, no wine but from your own cellars, have them open the bottles before you. Trust none of your servants. That’s all you can do. We cannot protect ourselves from her witchcraft except by hiring our own witch. If she uses dark forces against us, I don’t know what we can do.’

  ‘The queen’s guilt is not proven,’ Richard says doggedly.

  George laughs shortly. ‘I have lost a wife, a blameless woman that the queen hated. I don’t need more proof than that.’

  Richard shakes his head. ‘We cannot be divided,’ he insists. ‘We are the three sons of York. Edward had a sign, the three suns in the sky. We have come so far, we cannot be divided now.’

  ‘I am true to Edward and I am true to you,’ George swears. ‘But Edward’s wife is my enemy, and she is the enemy of your wife too. She has taken the best wife a man could have had from me, and a boy of my making. I shall make sure she does not hurt me again. I will employ food tasters, I will employ guards, and I will employ a sorcerer to protect me from her evil crafts.’

  Richard turns away