The Kingmaker's Daughter Read online

  At every stop on the way we hear fresh confused rumours. At Pontefract the people are saying that the coronation has been delayed because the councillors were in a treasonous conspiracy with the queen. In Nottingham, when we spend the night at the castle, people say she was going to put her brother Anthony Woodville on the throne, and many more say that she was going to make him Lord Protector. Outside Northampton I hear someone swear that the queen has sent all her children overseas to our sister-in-law Margaret in Flanders, because she is afraid that Henry Tudor will come and seize the throne.

  Outside St Albans a pedlar rides beside me for a few miles and tells me that he heard from one of his most respectable customers that the queen is no queen at all but a witch who enchanted the king, and their children are not true heirs but were got by magic. He has a new ballad in his pack: the story of Melusina, the water-witch who pretended to be mortal to get children from her lord and then was revealed as a nixie, a water-sprite. It is pointless to listen to him lustily singing the ballad, and foolish to listen to rumours which merely fuel my fear of the queen’s malice, but I cannot stop myself. What is worse is that everyone in the country is doing the same – we are all listening to rumours and wondering what the queen will do. We are all praying that Richard will be able to prevent her putting her son on the throne, allowing her brother to command him, taking the country into war again.

  As we ride through Barnet, where my father is still remembered fighting against this queen and her family, I turn aside to the little chapel that they have built at the battlefield and light a candle for him. Somewhere out there, under the ripening corn, are the bodies of his men who were buried where they lay, and somewhere out there is Midnight, the horse that gave his life in our service. Now I know that we are facing another battle, and this time my father’s son-in-law is – must be – the kingmaker.

  BAYNARD’S CASTLE, LONDON, JUNE 1483

  I am off my horse and up the stairs and into our apartments at a run and in a moment Richard’s arms are tight around me and we are clinging to each other as if we have survived a shipwreck. We hold each other as we did when we were little more than children and had run away together to be married. Once again I remember him as the only man who could keep me safe, as he holds me as if I am the only woman he has ever wanted.

  ‘I am so glad you are here,’ he says in my ear.

  ‘I am so glad you are safe,’ I reply.

  We step back to look at each other as if we cannot believe that we have got through these dangerous days. ‘What’s happening?’ I ask.

  He glances to see that the door is closed. ‘I’ve uncovered part of a plot,’ he says. ‘I swear that it reaches throughout London, but I have it by the tail at least. Edward’s mistress Elizabeth Shore has been playing the part of go-between between Elizabeth Woodville and the king’s friend William Hastings.’

  ‘But I thought it was Hastings who sent for you?’ I interrupt. ‘I thought he wanted the prince to be taken from the Rivers’ keeping? I thought he warned you to come quickly?’

  ‘He did. When I first came to London, he told me that he feared the power of the Rivers. Now he has turned his coat. I don’t know how she has managed to get hold of him but she has enchanted him as she does everyone. At any rate, I know of it in time. She has created a ring of plotters against my brother’s last words and against me. They are Hastings, perhaps Archbishop Rotherham, certainly Bishop Morton and perhaps Thomas, Lord Stanley.’

  ‘Margaret Beaufort’s husband?’

  He nods. This is bad news for us, since Lord Stanley is famous for always being on the winning side; if he is against us, then our chances are not good.

  ‘They don’t want me to crown the boy and serve as his chief councillor. They want him in their keeping – not mine. They want to get him away from me, restore the power of the Rivers, and arrest me for treason. Then they’ll crown him, or declare a regency with Anthony Woodville as Lord Protector. The boy has become a prize. The little prince has become a pawn.’

  I shake my head. ‘What will you do?’

  He smiles grimly. ‘Why, I shall arrest them for treason. Plotting against the Lord Protector is treason, just as if I were king. I am already holding Anthony Woodville and Richard Grey. I shall arrest Hastings and the bishops also, I shall arrest Thomas, Lord Stanley.’

  There is a tap at the door and my ladies come in with my chests of clothes. ‘Not in here,’ my husband orders them. ‘Her Grace and I will sleep in the rooms at the back of the house.’

  They curtsey and go out again. ‘Why are we not in our usual rooms?’ I ask. We normally have the beautiful rooms that overlook the river.

  ‘It’s safer at the back of the house,’ he says. ‘The queen’s brother has taken the fleet to sea. If he sails up the Thames and bombards us, we could take a direct hit. This house has never been fortified – but who would have thought that we would face an attack from the river by our own fleet?’

  I look out of the wide windows at the view I love, of the river and the ships, the ferries, the little rowing boats, the barges and the scows all going by at peace. ‘The queen’s brother might bombard us? From our river, the Thames? In our own house?’

  He nods. ‘This is a time of wonders,’ he says. ‘I wake every morning and try to puzzle out what new hell she is devising.’

  ‘Who is with us?’ It is the question that my father would always ask.

  ‘Buckingham has emerged as a true friend; he hates the wife that they forced on him and all the Rivers family. He commands a fortune and many men. I can also count on all of my men from the North of course; John Howard; my personal friends; my Lady Mother’s affinity; your side of the family, of course, so all the Nevilles . . .’

  I am listening intently. ‘It’s not enough,’ I say. ‘And mostly based in the North. She can call out the royal household, and all her own family that she has put in such great positions. She can call on help from Burgundy, from her kinsmen in Europe. Perhaps she has made an alliance with the King of France already? France would back her rather than you, thinking they have a greater advantage to make trouble with a woman in power. And as soon as they know you are in London, the Scots will take the chance to rise.’

  He nods. ‘I know. But I have the prince in my keeping,’ he says. ‘That is my master card. Remember how it was with the old king Henry? If you hold the king then there is really no argument. You have the power.’

  ‘Unless you simply crown another king,’ I remind him. ‘That’s what my father did with your brother. He held Henry; but he crowned Edward. What if she puts her other boy on the throne? Even though you hold the true heir?’

  ‘I know. I have to get her second son into my keeping too. I have to hold anyone who might claim to be king.’

  Richard’s mother and I sit together for company in the back rooms of Baynard’s Castle. The nagging noise of the busy streets drifts through the open windows, the stink of London comes in on the hot air, but Richard has asked us to stay away from the cool gardens that lead down to the river, and never to go near the riverside windows. We may not go out into the streets without an armed guard. He does not know if the Rivers have hired assassins against us. The duchess is pale with anxiety; she has some sewing in her hands but she works at random, picking it up and putting it down again at the least noise from the streets outside the window.

  ‘I wish to God he would put her to death,’ she says suddenly. ‘Make an end of her. Her and all her ill-gotten children.’

  I am silent. It is so near to my own thoughts that I hardly dare to agree.

  ‘We have not had one peaceful or happy day since she enchanted my son Edward,’ she says. ‘He lost the love of your father for her, he lost the chance of an honourable marriage that would have brought peace between us and France. He threw away the honour of his family by bringing her sturdy brood into our house, and now she will put one of her changeling sons on our throne. She told him to kill George – I know it, I was there as she advised him. Ed