The White Princess Read online

  The court takes no joy in the coming of summer, and though I buy Arthur his first horse and his first proper saddle, and then have to comfort Henry, who demands a full-size horse of his own, as good as his brother’s, I cannot pretend that it is a summer as it should be, or that the court is a happy one. The king goes everywhere shrouded in silence, his mother spends most of her time in the chapel, and every time someone is missing from dinner or from prayers, everyone looks around and whispers, “Has he gone too? Dear God, has he gone as well? To the boy?”

  It is as if we are players on a small tawdry stage, like players who pretend that all is well, that they are comfortable on their stools in their ill-fitting crowns. But anyone looking to the left or to the right can see that this false court is just a few people perched on a wagon, trying to create an illusion of grandeur.

  Margaret visits her brother in the Tower before the court leaves London, and comes back to my rooms looking grave. His lessons have been stopped, his guard has been changed, he has become so silent and so sad that she fears that even if he were to be released tomorrow, he would never recover the spirits of the excited little boy that we brought to the capital. He is nineteen years old now but he is not allowed out into the garden; he is allowed only to walk around the roof of the Tower every afternoon. He says he cannot remember what it is like to run, he thinks he has forgotten how to ride a horse. He is innocent of anything but bearing a great name, and he cannot put that name aside, as Margaret has done, as I and my sisters have done, burying our identities in marriage. It is as if his name as a duke of the House of York will drag him, like a millstone around his neck, down into deep water, and never release him.

  “Do you think the king will ever let Edward go?” she asks me. “I don’t dare to ask him, this summer. Not even as a favor. I don’t dare to speak to him. And anyway, Sir Richard has ordered me not to. He says we can say nothing and do nothing that might cause the king to doubt our loyalty.”

  “Henry can’t doubt Sir Richard,” I protest. “He has made him chamberlain to Arthur. He’ll send him to govern Wales as soon as it is safe for him to leave court. He trusts him more than anyone else in the world.”

  Her quick shake of the head reminds me that the king doubts everybody.

  “Is Henry doubting Sir Richard?” I whisper.

  “He has set a man to watch us,” she says in an undertone. “But if he can’t trust Sir Richard . . . ?”

  “Then I don’t think Teddy will ever be released,” I finish grimly. “I don’t think Henry will ever let him go.”

  “No, King Henry won’t . . .” she concedes. “But . . .”

  In the silence between us, I can see the unspoken words as clearly as if she had traced them on the wood of the table and then polished them away: “King Henry will never release him: but King Richard would.”

  “Who knows what will happen?” I say shortly. “Certainly, even in an empty room, you and I should never, ever speculate.”

  We get constant news from Malines. I start to dread seeing the door of the king’s privy chamber close and the guard stand across it with his pike barring the way, for then I know that another messenger or spy has come to see Henry. The king tries to ensure that no news escapes from his constant meetings but quickly word gets out that the Emperor Maximilian has visited his lands in Flanders and the boy, the boy who may not be named, is traveling with him as his dearly beloved fellow monarch. The court in Malines is no longer grand enough for him. Maximilian gives him a great palace in the city of Antwerp, a palace hung with his own standard and decorated with white roses. His name, Richard, Prince of Wales and Duke of York, is emblazoned at the front of the building, his retainers wear the York colors of murrey—a deep berry crimson—and blue, and he is served on bended knee.

  Henry comes to me as I am stepping into my barge for an evening on the water. “May I join you?”

  It is so rare for him to speak pleasantly these days that I fail to answer him at all, I just gawp at him like a peasant girl. He laughs as if he is carefree. “You seem amazed, that I should want to come for a sail with you.”

  “I am amazed,” I say. “But I am very pleased. I thought you were locked in your privy chamber with reports.”

  “I was, but then I saw from my window that they were getting your barge ready, and I thought: what a lovely evening it is to be on the water.”

  I gesture to my court and a young man bounds out of his seat; everyone else moves along and Henry sits beside me, nodding that the boatmen can cast off.

  It is a beautiful evening; the swallows are twisting and turning low over the silvery river, dipping down to snatch a beakful of water and then swirling away. A curlew lifts up from the riverbank and calls low and sweet, its wings wide. Softly, the musicians on the following barge set a note and start to play.

  “I am so glad you came with us,” I say quietly.

  He takes my hand and kisses it. It is the first gesture of affection between us for many weeks, and it warms me like the evening sunlight. “I am glad too,” he says.

  I glance at him and take in the weariness in his face and the tension in his shoulders. For a moment I wonder if I can speak to him as a wife should speak to her husband, scolding him for not taking care of himself, urging him to rest, caring for his health. “I think you have been working too hard,” I say.

  “I have many worries,” he says quietly, as if he has not been on the very brink of madness. “But this evening I should like to be at peace with you.”

  I glow towards him, and I can feel my smile broaden. “Oh, Henry!”

  “My love,” he says. “You are always—whatever troubles I have—you are always my love.”

  He takes my hand, he carries it to his lips, he kisses it gently, and I cup my other hand to his cheek. “I feel as if you have suddenly come back to me, from a long dangerous journey,” I say wonderingly.

  “I wanted to come on the water,” he explains. “Where in the world is more beautiful than the river and a summer evening in England? And where is there better company?”

  “The best company in England, now that you’re here.”

  He smiles at the compliment and his face is warm, happy. He looks years younger than the frantic man who waits for messengers from Flanders. “And I have plans,” he promises.

  “Good plans?”

  “Very. I have decided that it’s time to proclaim Henry as Duke of York. Now that he’s four.”

  “He’s not yet four,” I correct him.

  “Near enough. He should have his title.”

  I wait, my smile fading from my face. I know my husband well enough to realize that there will be more.

  “And I’ll make him Lieutenant of Ireland.”

  “At three and a half?”

  “He’s nearly four. Don’t you worry! He won’t have to go anywhere or do anything. I’ll make Sir Edward Poynings his deputy in Ireland and send him over there with a force.”

  “A force?”

  “To make sure that they accept Henry’s rule. To establish our son’s name in Ireland.”

  I look away from my husband’s intent face to the green banks where the swish of our oars barely stirs the reeds. An oystercatcher calls its sudden piping warning, and I can just see the little chick, pied brilliant white and glossy black like its parents, crouch down low as we go past.

  “You are not honoring our little son Henry,” I say quietly. “You are using him.”

  “This is to show them in Malines, in Antwerp, in Flanders, to show them even in London, in Ireland, that they don’t have the Duke of York. We have him, and his name is Henry Duke of York. He is Lieutenant of Ireland and the Irish will bow the knee to him and I will have the head of anyone who mentions any other duke.”

  “You mean the boy,” I say flatly. It is almost as if the color is draining away from the golden sunset. The joy is going from the evening as the rose is going from the light.

  “They call him Richard Duke of York. We will show them tha