The White Queen: A Novel

by Philippa Gregory

  My eyes stay on her pale face. I don’t even glance at the fireplace where the twist of linen from the duke’s napkin was burned, after I tied it around my forearm, and then cursed it, to rob him of breath and strength, to make his sword arm weak as a hunchback’s.

  “Who does he name as the witch?”

  “You,” she says. I feel Elizabeth flinch.

  And then she adds, “And me.”

  “The two of us acting in concert?”

  “Yes,” she says simply. “That’s why I came to warn you. If he can prove you are a witch, can he break sanctuary, and take you and your children out of here?”

  I nod. He can.

  And in any case, I remember the battle of Tewkesbury, when my own husband broke sanctuary with no reason or explanation, and dragged wounded men out of the abbey and butchered them in the graveyard and then went into the abbey and killed some more on the altar steps. They had to scrub the chancel floor clean of the blood; they had to resanctify the whole place, it was so fouled with death.

  “He can,” I say. “Worse has been done before.”

  “I must go,” she says fearfully. “He may be watching me. William would have wanted me to do what I can to keep your children safe, but I can do no more. I should tell you: Lord Stanley did what he could to save William. He warned him that the duke would act against him. He had a dream that they would be gored by a boar with bloody tusks. He warned William. It was just that William didn’t think it would be so fast…” The tears are running down her cheeks now and her voice is choked. “So unjust,” she whispers. “And against such a good man. To have soldiers drag him from council! To take off his head without even a priest! No time to pray!”

  “He was a good man,” I concede.

  “Now that he is gone you have lost a protector. You are all in grave danger,” she states. “As am I.”

  She pulls the hood back over her hair and goes to the door. “I wish you well,” she says. “And Edward’s boys. If I can serve you, I will. But in the meantime I must not be seen coming to you. I dare not come again.”

  “Wait,” I say. “Did you say Lord Stanley remains loyal to the young King Edward?”

  “Stanley, Bishop Morton, and Archbishop Rotherham are all imprisoned by order of the duke, suspected of working for you and yours. Richard thinks they have been plotting against him. The only men left free in the council now are those who will do the duke’s bidding.”

  “Has he run mad?” I ask incredulously. “Has Richard run mad?”

  She shakes her head. “I think he has decided to claim the throne,” she says simply. “D’you remember how the king used to say that Richard always did what he promised? That if Richard swore he would do something it was done—cost what it may?”

  I don’t like to have this woman quoting my husband to me, but I agree.

  “I think Richard has made his decision, I think he has promised to himself. I think he has decided that the best thing for him, and for England, is a strong new king and not a boy of twelve. And now he has made up his mind, he will do whatever it takes to put himself on the throne. Cost what it may.”

  She opens the door a crack and peers out. She picks up the basket to make it look as if she was delivering goods to us. She peeps back at me around the door. “The king always said that Richard would stop at nothing once he had agreed a plan,” she says. “If he stops at nothing now, you will not be safe. I hope you can make yourself safe, Your Grace, you and the children…you and Edward’s boys.” She dips a little curtsey and whispers, “God bless you for his sake,” and the door clicks behind her and she has gone.

  I don’t hesitate. It is as if the thud of axe through Hastings’s neck on Tower Green is a trumpet blast that signals the start of a race. But this is a race to get my son to safety from the threat of his uncle, who is now on a path of murder. There is no doubt in my mind anymore that Duke Richard will kill both my sons to make his way clear to the throne. I would not give a groat for the life of George’s son, either, wherever he is housed. I saw Richard go into the room of the sleeping King Henry to kill a defenseless man because his claim to the throne was as good as Edward’s. There is no doubt in my mind that Richard will follow the same logic as the three brothers did that night. A sacred and ordained king stood between their line and the throne—and they killed him. Now my boy stands between Richard and the throne. He will kill him if he can, and it may be that I cannot prevent it. But I swear, he will not get my younger boy Richard.

  I have prepared him for this moment, but when I tell him that he will have to go at once, tonight, he is startled that it has come so soon. His color drains away from his cheeks, but his bright boyish bravery makes him hold his head up and bite his little lip so as not to cry. He is only nine, but he has been raised to be a prince of the House of York. He has been raised to show courage. I kiss him on the top of his fair head and tell him to be a good boy, and remember all that he has been told to do, and when it starts to grow dark, I lead him down through the crypt, down the stairs, even deeper, down into the catacomb below the building, where we have to go past the stone coffins and the vaulted rooms of the burial chambers with one lantern before us and one in his little hand. The light does not flicker. He does not tremble even when we go past the shadowy graves. He walks briskly beside me, his head up.

  The way leads out to a hidden iron gate, and beyond it a stone pier extending out into the river, with a rocking rowing boat silently alongside. It is a little wherry, hired for river traffic, one of hundreds. I had hoped to send him out in the warship, commanded by my brother Edward, with men at arms sworn to protect him; but God knows where Edward is this night, and the fleet has turned against us, and will sail for Richard the duke. I have no warships at my command. We will have to make do with this. My boy has to go out with no protection but two loyal servants, and the blessing of his mother. One of Edward’s friends is waiting for him at Greenwich, Sir Edward Brampton, who loved Edward. Or so I hope. I cannot know. I can be certain of nothing.

  The two men are waiting silently in the boat, holding it against the current with a rope through the ring on the stone steps, and I push my boy towards them and they lift him on board and seat him in the stern. There is no time for any farewells, and anyway there is nothing I can say but a prayer for his safety that catches me in the throat as if I have swallowed a dagger. The boat pushes off and I raise my hand to wave to him, and see his little white face under the big cap looking back at me.

  I lock the iron gate behind me, and then go back up the stone steps, silent through the silent catacombs, and I look out from my window. His boat is pulling away into the river traffic, the two men at the oars, my boy in the stern. There is no reason for anyone to stop them. There are dozens like them, hundreds of boats crisscrossing the river, about their own business, two workingmen with a lad to run errands. I swing open my window but I will not call to him. I will not call him back. I just want him to be able to see me if he glances up. I want him to know that I did not let him go lightly, that I looked for him until the last, the very last moment. I want him to see me looking for him through the dusk, and know that I will look for him for the rest of my life, I will look for him till the hour of my death, I will look for him after death, and the river will whisper his name.

  He does not glance up. He does as he was told. He is a good boy, a brave boy. He remembers to keep his head down and his cap pulled down on his forehead to hide his fair hair. He must remember to answer to the name of Peter, and not expect to be served on bended knee. He must forget the pageants and the royal progresses, the lions at the Tower, and the jester tumbling head over heels to make him laugh. He must forget the crowds of people cheering his name and his pretty sisters who played with him and taught him French and Latin and even a little German. He must forget the brother he adored who was born to be king. He must be like a bird, a swallow, who in winter flies beneath the waters of the rivers and freezes into stillness and silence and does not fly out again until
spring comes to unlock the waters and let them flow. He must go like a dear little swallow into the river, into the keeping of his ancestress Melusina. He must trust that the river will hide him and keep him safe, for I can no longer do so.

  I watch the boat from my window and at first I can see him in the stern, rocking as the little wherry moves in steady pulses, as the boatman pulls on the oars. Then the current catches it and they go faster and there are other boats, barges, fishing boats, trading ships, ferryboats, wherries, even a couple of huge logging rafts, and I can see my boy no longer and he has gone to the river and I have to trust him to Melusina and the water, and I am left without him, marooned without my last son, stranded on the riverbank.

  My grown son, Thomas Grey, goes the same night. He slips out of the door dressed like a groom into the backstreets of London. We need someone on the outside to hear news and raise our forces. There are hundreds of men loyal to us, and thousands who would fight against the duke. But they must be mustered and organized, and Thomas has to do this. There is no one else left who can. He is twenty-seven. I know I am sending him out to danger, perhaps to his death. “Godspeed,” I say to him. He kneels to me and I put my hand on his head in blessing. “Where will you go?”

  “To the safest place in London,” he says with a rueful smile. “A place that loved your husband and will never forgive Duke Richard for betraying him. The only honest business in London.”

  “Where d’you mean?”

  “The whorehouse,” he says with a grin.

  And then he turns into the darkness and is gone.

  Next morning, early, Elizabeth brings the little page boy to me. He served us at Windsor, and has agreed to serve us again. Elizabeth holds him by the hand for she is a kind girl, but he smells of the stables, where he has been sleeping. “You will answer to the name of Richard, Duke of York,” I tell him. “People will call you my lord, and sire. You will not correct them. You will not say a word. Just nod.”

  “Yes’m,” he mumbles.

  “And you will call me Lady Mother,” I say.

  “Yes’m.”

  “Yes, Lady Mother.”

  “Yes, Lady Mother,” he repeats.

  “And you will have a bath and put on clean clothes.”

  His frightened little face flashes up at me. “No! I can’t bathe!” he protests.

  Elizabeth looks aghast. “Anyone will know at once,” she says.

  “We’ll say he is ill,” I say. “We’ll say he has a cold or a sore throat. We’ll tie up his jaw with a flannel and put a scarf around his mouth. We’ll tell him to be silent. It’s only for a few days. Just to give us time.”

  She nods. “I’ll bathe him,” she says.

  “Get Jemma to help you,” I say. “And one of the men will probably have to hold him in the water.”

  She finds a smile, but her eyes are shadowed. “Mother, do you really think my uncle the duke would harm his own nephew?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “And that is why I have sent my beloved royal son away from me, and my boy Thomas Grey has to go out into the darkness. I don’t any longer know what the duke might do.”

  The serving girl Jemma asks if she can go out on Sunday afternoon to see the Shore whore serve her penance. “To do what?” I ask.

  She dips a curtsey, her head bowed low, but she is so desperate to go that she is ready to risk offending me. “I am sorry, ma’am, Your Grace, but she is to walk in the city in her kirtle carrying a lighted taper and everyone is going to see her. She has to do penance for sin, for being a whore. I thought if I came in early every day for the next week you might let me—”

  “Elizabeth Shore?”

  Her face bobs up. “The notorious whore,” she recites. “The lord protector has ordered that she do public penance for her sins of the flesh.”

  “You can go and watch,” I say abruptly. One more gaze in the crowd will make no difference. I think of this young woman who Edward loved, who Hastings loved, walking barefoot in her petticoat, carrying a taper, shielding its flickering flame while people shout abuse or spit on her. Edward would not like this, and for him, if not for her, I would stop it if I could. But there is nothing I can do to protect her. Richard the duke has turned vicious and even a beautiful woman has to suffer for being beloved.

  “She is punished for nothing but her looks.” My brother Lionel has been listening at the window for the appreciative murmur of the crowd as she walks around the city boundary. “And because now Richard suspects her of hiding your brother Thomas. He raided her house but he couldn’t find Thomas. She kept him safe, hidden from Gloucester’s men, and then got him out of the way.”

  “God bless her for that,” I say.

  Lionel smiles. “Apparently, this punishment has gone wrong for Duke Richard anyway. Nobody is speaking ill of her as she walks,” he says. “One of the ferryboat men shouted up at me when I was at the window. He says that the women cry shame on her, shame, and the men just admire her. It’s not every day that they see such a lovely woman in her petticoat. They say she looks like a naked angel, beautiful and fallen.”

  I smile. “Well, God bless her anyway, angel or whore.”

  My brother the bishop smiles too. “I think her sins were ones of love, not of malice,” he says. “And in these hard days perhaps that is what matters the most.”

  JUNE 17, 1483

  They send my kinsman, Cardinal Thomas Bourchier, and half a dozen other lords from the Privy Council to reason with me, and I greet them as a queen, draped in the royal diamonds looted from the treasury, seated on a grand chair for my throne. I hope I look queenly and dignified; in truth I feel murderous. These are the lords of my Privy Council. They have the positions that my husband gave them. He made them what they are today, and now they dare come to me and tell me what Duke Richard requires of me. Elizabeth stands behind me, and my other four daughters in a row. None of my sons or brothers are present, They don’t remark that my son Thomas Grey is escaped from sanctuary and is on the loose in London, and I certainly don’t draw attention to his absence.

  They tell me that they have proclaimed Duke Richard protector of the realm, regent, and governor of the prince, and they assure me that they are preparing for the coronation of my son Prince Edward. They want my younger son Richard to join his brother in the royal rooms in the Tower.

  “The duke will be protector for only a matter of days, only till the coronation,” Thomas Bourchier explains to me, his face so earnest that I must trust him. This is a man who has spent his life trying to bring peace to this country. He crowned Edward as king and me as queen because he believed that we would bring peace to this country. I know that he is speaking from his heart. “As soon as the young king is crowned, then all the power reverts to him and you are dowager queen and mother of the king,” he says. “Come back to your palace, Your Grace, and attend the coronation of your son. The people wonder that they don’t see you, and it looks odd to the foreign ambassadors. Let us do as we all swore to the king on his deathbed—put your son on the throne and all work together leaving aside enmity. Let the royal family be housed in the royal apartments in the Tower, and let them come out in their power and their beauty for their boy’s coronation.”

  For a moment I am persuaded. More, I am tempted. Perhaps everything can end happily. Then I think of my brother Anthony and my son Richard Grey imprisoned together in Pontefract Castle, and I hesitate. I have to pause and think. I have to keep them safe. While I am in sanctuary, my safety and my son Richard’s safety balances their imprisonment like the weights in a pair of scales. They are hostages for my good behavior, but equally Duke Richard dare not touch them for fear of enraging me. If Richard wants to rid himself of Riverses he has to have all of us in his power. By keeping out of his reach, I protect those of us he does have, as well as those who are free. I have to keep my brother Anthony safe against his enemies. I have to. This is my crusade: like the one I would not let him ride. I have to keep him safe to be the light in the world t
hat he is.

  “I cannot release Prince Richard to you,” I say, my voice filled with false regret. “He has been so ill lately, I cannot bear anyone should care for him but me. He is not yet well, he has lost his voice, and if he were to have a relapse, it could be worse than his first illness. If you want him and his brother to be together, then send Edward to join us here, where I can care for them both and know that they are not in danger. I long to see my oldest son by King Edward, and know that he is safe. I pray you, send him to me, to safety. He can be crowned from here, as well as from the Tower.”

  “Why, madam,” says Thomas Howard, bristling like the bully that he is. “Can you name any reason why they should be in danger?”

  I look at him for a moment. Does he really think that he is likely to trap me into confessing my enmity to the Duke Richard? “All the rest of my family are either run away or imprisoned,” I say flatly. “Why should I think that I and my sons are secure?”

  “Now, now,” the cardinal interrupts, nodding at Howard to silence him. “Anyone in prison will be tried before a court of their peers as they should be, and the truth of any accusation will be proved or denied. The lords have ruled that no charge of treason can be brought against your brother Anthony, Earl Rivers. That should satisfy you that we come in good faith. You cannot imagine that I, I myself, should come to you in anything other than good faith?”

  “Ah, my lord cardinal,” I say. “I don’t doubt you.”

  “Then trust me when I give you my word, my personal word, that your boy will be safe with me,” he says. “I shall take him to his brother and no harm will come to either of them. You distrust the Duke Richard, and he suspects you—this is a sorrow to me, but you both have your reasons—but I will swear that neither the duke nor any other will harm your boys and they will be safe together, and Edward will be crowned king.”