The White Queen: A Novel Read online

  In truth, I don’t know what she is to do, poor little girl of mine. She is in love with a man whose survival depends on his being able to command the loyalty of England and, if he were to tell England that he hopes to marry his niece before his wife is cold in the ground, he will have donated the whole of the north to Henry Tudor, in a moment. They won’t take kindly to an insult to Anne Neville, quick or dead, and the north is where Richard has always drawn his strength. He will not dare to offend the men of Yorkshire or Cumbria, Durham or Northumberland. He cannot even risk it, not while Henry Tudor recruits men and raises his army and waits only for the spring tides.

  I tell the messenger to get some food, to sleep the night and be ready to take my reply in the morning, and then I walk by the river and listen to the quiet sound of the water over the white stones. I hope that Melusina will speak to me, or that I will find a twist of thread with a ring shaped like a crown trailing in the water; but I have to come home without any message, and I have to write to Elizabeth with nothing to guide me but my years at court, and my own sense of what Richard can dare.

  Daughter,

  I know how distressed you are—I hear it in every line. Be brave. This season will tell us everything, and everything will be changed by this summer. Go to the Stanleys and do your best to please them both. Lady Margaret is a pious and determined woman; you could not ask for a guardian more likely to scotch scandal. Her reputation will render you as spotless as a virgin, and that is how you must appear—whatever happens next.

  If you can like her, if you can endear yourself to her, all the better. It is a trick I never managed; but at the very least live pleasantly with her, for you will not be with her for long.

  Richard is putting you in a safe place, far from scandal, far from danger, until Henry Tudor makes his challenge for the throne and the battle is over. When this happens, and Richard wins, as I think he must, he will be able to fetch you from the Stanleys’ house with honor, and marry you as part of the celebrations of victory.

  Dearest daughter, I don’t expect you to enjoy a visit to the Stanleys, but they are the best family in England for you to show that you acknowledge your betrothal to Henry Tudor and that you are living chastely. When the battle is over and Henry Tudor is dead, then nobody can say a word against you, and the disapproval of the north can be faced down. In the meantime, let Lady Margaret think that you are happy in your promise to Henry Tudor, and that you are hopeful of his victory.

  This will not be an easy time for you, but Richard has to be free to summon his men and fight his battle. As men have to fight, women have to wait and plan. This is your time for waiting and planning, and you must be constant and discreet.

  Honesty matters so much less.

  My love and blessing to you,

  Your mother

  Something wakes me early, at dawn. I sniff at the air as if I were a hare sitting up on my hind legs in a meadow. Something is happening, I know it. Even here, inland in Wiltshire, I can smell that the wind has changed, almost I can smell the salt from the sea. The wind is coming from the south, due south; it is a wind for an invasion, an onshore wind, and somehow I know, as clearly as if I could see them, the crates of weapons being loaded to the deck, the men striding down the gangplanks and jumping to the boats, the standards furled and propped in the prow, the men-at-arms mustering on the dock. I know that Henry has his force, his ships at the dockside, his captains plotting a course: he is ready to sail.

  I wish I could know where he will land. But I doubt that he knows himself. They will untie fore and aft, they will throw the lines on board, they will raise the sails, and the half dozen ships will nose their way out of shelter of the port. As they get to the sea the sails will billow, the sheets crack, and the boats rise and fall on the choppy waves, but then they will steer as best they can. They might head for the south coast—rebels always get a good welcome in Cornwall or Kent—or they might head for Wales, where the name of Tudor can bring out thousands. The wind will catch them and take them, and they will have to hope for the best, and when they see land, calculate where they have arrived, and then beat up the coast to find their safest haven.

  Richard is no fool—he knew this would come as soon as the winter storms died down. He is in his great castle at Nottingham, at the center of England, calling out his reserves, naming his lords, prepared for the challenge that he knew would come this year, as it would have come last year but for the rain that Elizabeth and I blew up to keep Buckingham from London and away from my boy.

  This year, Henry comes with a following wind: the battle has to be met. The Tudor boy is of the House of Lancaster, and this is the final battle in the cousins’ war. There is no doubt in my mind that York will win, as York mostly does. Warwick has gone—even his daughters Anne and Isabel are dead—there is no great Lancaster general left. There is only Jasper Tudor and Margaret Beaufort’s boy against Richard in his power with all the levies of England. Both Richard and Henry are without heirs. Both know that they themselves are their only cause. Both know that the war will be ended with the death of the other. I have seen many battles in my time as a wife and a widow in England, but never one as clear-cut as this. I predict a short and brutal battle and a dead man at the end of it and the crown of England, and the hand of my daughter, to the winner.

  And I expect to see Margaret Beaufort don black to mourn the death of her son.

  Her sorrow will be the start of a new life for me and mine. At last, I think I can send for my son Richard. I think it is time.

  I have been waiting to set this part of my plan in motion for two years, ever since I had to send my boy away. I write to Sir Edward Brampton, loyal Yorkist, great merchant, man of the world, and sometime pirate. Certainly a man who is not afraid of a little risk and who relishes an adventure.

  He arrives on the very day that Cook is gabbling the news that Henry Tudor has landed. Tudor’s ships were blown ashore to Milford Haven and he is marching through Wales recruiting men to his standard. Richard is levying men and marching out of Nottingham. The country is at war once more, and anything could happen.

  “Troubled times again,” Sir Edward says to me urbanely. I meet him far from the house, on the banks of the river, where a willow copse shields us from the passing track. Sir Edward’s horse and mine crop the short grass companionably as we stand, both of us looking for the flicker of brown trout in the clear water. I am right to keep us out of sight: Sir Edward is a striking man, richly dressed, black-haired. He has always been a favorite of mine, a godson of Edward my husband, who sponsored his baptism out of Jewry. He always loved Edward for being his godfather; and I would trust him with my life, or with something more precious than life itself. I trusted him when he commanded the ship to take Richard away, and I trust him now, when I hope he will bring him back.

  “Times that I think might be to the good of me and mine,” I observe.

  “I am at your service,” he says. “And the country is so distracted by the summoning of the levies that I think I might do anything for you, unobserved.”

  “I know.” I smile at him. “I don’t forget that you served me once before, when you took a boy on board your ship to Flanders.”

  “What can I do for you this time?”

  “You can go the town of Tournai, in Flanders,” I say. “To the St. Jean Bridge. The man who keeps the water gate there is called Jehan Werbecque.”

  He nods, committing the name to his memory. “And what will I find there?” he asks, his voice very low.

  I can hardly speak the secret that I have held in silence for so long. “You will find my son,” I say. “My son Richard. You will find him and bring him to me.”

  His grave face lifts to me, his brown eyes shining. “It is safe for him to return? He will be restored to his father’s throne?” he asks me. “You have made an agreement with King Richard and Edward’s boy will be king in his turn?”

  “God willing,” I say. “Yes.”

  Melusina, the woman who co