The White Queen: A Novel

by Philippa Gregory

  And it is not like Richard to ride away from work that needs doing. When he and his brothers decided that poor King Henry should die, the three of them met outside his door and went in together, their faces grim but their minds made up. These are York princes: they have no objection to wicked deeds; but they do not leave them to others, they do them firsthand. The risk of asking another to kill two innocent princes of the blood, bribing the guards, hiding the bodies, would be unbearable for Richard. I have seen how he kills: directly, without warning, but openly, without shame. The man who beheaded Sir William Hastings on a piece of builders’ timber would not wink at holding a pillow over the face of a young boy. If the thing was to be done, I would have sworn he would do it himself. At the very least he would give the order and watch that it was done.

  All this is to convince me that Sir John from Reigate is mistaken and my boy Edward is still alive. But again and again as I turn at the window and glance down at the river in darkness and mist, I wonder if I am mistaken, mistaken in everything, even in my trust in Melusina. Perhaps Richard managed to find someone who would kill the boys. Perhaps Edward is dead, and perhaps I have lost the Sight, and I just don’t know. Perhaps I know nothing anymore.

  By the early hours of the morning I cannot bear to be alone for another minute, and I send a messenger to fetch Dr. Lewis to me. I tell them to wake him and get him out of bed, for I am mortally ill. By the time he is admitted by the guards, my lie is becoming true, and I am running a fever from sheer agony of mind.

  “Your Grace?” he asks cautiously.

  I am haggard in the candlelight, my hair in a clumsy plait, my robe knotted around me. “You have to get your servants, trusted men, into the Tower to guard my son Edward, since we cannot get him out,” I say bluntly. “Lady Margaret must use her influence, she must use her husband’s name, to ensure my sons are well guarded. They are in danger. They are in terrible danger.”

  “You have news?”

  “There is a rumor spreading that my boys are dead,” I say.

  He shows no surprise. “God forbid it, Your Grace, but I fear that it is more than a rumor. It is as the Duke of Buckingham warned us. He said that this false king would kill his nephews to get the throne.”

  I recoil, very slightly, as if I had put out my hand and seen a snake sunning itself where I was about to touch.

  “Yes,” I say, suddenly wary. “That is what I have heard, and it was the Duke of Buckingham’s man who said it.”

  He crosses himself. “God spare us.”

  “But I hope that the deed is not yet done, and I hope to prevent it.”

  He nods. “Alas, I am afraid that we may be too late, and that they are already lost to us. Your Grace, I grieve with all my heart for you.”

  “I thank you for your sympathy,” I say steadily. My temples are throbbing, I cannot think. It is as if I am looking at the snake and it looks back at me.

  “Please God, this uprising destroys the uncle who could do such a thing. God will be on our side against such a Herod.”

  “If it was Richard.”

  He looks at me suddenly, as if this shocks him, though he seems well able to tolerate the idea of the murder of children. “Who else could do such a thing? Who else would benefit? Who killed Sir William Hastings, and your brother and your other son? Who is the murderer of your family and your worst enemy, Your Grace? You can suspect no one else!”

  I can feel myself tremble and the tears start to come; they are burning my eyes. “I don’t know,” I say unsteadily. “I just feel certain that my boy is not dead. I would know if he was killed. A mother would know that. Ask Lady Margaret: she would know if her Henry was dead. A mother knows. And anyway, my Richard at least is safe.”

  He takes the bait and I see his response—I see the flash of a spy looking from his melting eyes. “Oh, is he?” he asks invitingly.

  I have said enough. “They are both safe, please God,” I correct myself. “But tell me—why are you so certain that they are dead?”

  He puts his hand gently on mine. “I did not want to grieve you. But they have not been seen since the false king left London, and the duke and Lady Margaret both believe that he had them killed before he left. There was nothing any of us could do to save them. When we besieged the Tower, they were already dead.”

  I pull my hand away from his comforting grasp and put it to my aching forehead. I wish I could think clearly. I remember Lionel telling me that he heard the servants shouting to take the boys deeper into the Tower. I remember him telling me that he was just the distance of the door from Edward. But why would Dr. Lewis lie to me?

  “Would it not have been better for our cause if the duke had kept silent?” I ask. “My friends and family and allies are recruiting men to rescue the princes, but the duke is telling them that they are already dead. Why should my men turn out, if their prince is dead?”

  “As well they should know now as later,” he says smoothly, too smoothly.

  “Why? I say. “Why should they know now, before the battle?”

  “So that everyone knows it is the false king who gave the order,” he says. “So that Duke Richard has the blame. Your people will rise for revenge.”

  I cannot think, I cannot think why this matters. I can sense a lie in here somewhere, but I cannot put my finger on it. Something is wrong, I know it.

  “But who would doubt that it is King Richard who had them killed? As you say, the murderer of my kinsmen? Why would we declare our fears now, and confuse our people?”

  “Nobody would doubt it,” he assures me. “No one else but Richard would do such a thing. No one else would benefit from such a crime.”

  I jump to my feet in sudden impatience, and knock the table and overturn the candlestick.

  “I don’t understand!”

  He snatches at the candle and the flame bobs and throws a terrible shadow on his friendly face. For a moment he is as he was when I first saw him when Cecily came to tell me that Death was at the door. I gasp in fear and I step back from him as he puts the candle carefully back on the table and stands, as he should do, since I, the dowager queen, am standing.

  “You can go,” I say disjointedly. “Forgive me, I am distressed. I don’t know what to think. You can leave me.”

  “Shall I give you a draft to help you sleep? I am so sorry for your grief.”

  “No, I will sleep now. I thank you for your company.” I take a breath. I push back the hair from my face. “You have calmed me with your wisdom. I am at peace now.”

  He looks puzzled. “But I have said nothing.”

  I shake my head. I cannot wait for him to leave. “You have shared my worries, and that is the act of a friend.”

  “I shall see Lady Margaret first thing this morning and tell her of your fears. I shall ask her to put her men in the Tower to get news of your boys. If they are alive, we will find men to guard them. We will keep them safe.”

  “At least Richard is safe,” I remark incautiously.

  “Safer than his brother?”

  I smile like a woman with a secret. “Doctor, if you had two precious rare jewels and you feared thieves, would you put your two treasures in the same box?”

  “Richard was not in the Tower?” His voice is a breath, his blue eyes staring; he is all aquiver.

  I put my finger to my lips. “Hush.”

  “But two boys were killed in the bed…”

  Were they? Oh were they? How are you so very sure of this? I keep my face as still as marble as he turns from me, and bows and goes to the door.

  “Tell Lady Margaret I beg her to guard my son in the Tower as if he were her own,” I say.

  He bows again and is gone.

  When the children wake, I tell them I am ill and I keep to my chamber. Elizabeth I turn away at the door and tell her that I need to sleep. I don’t need sleep, I need to understand. I hold my head in my hands and walk up and down the room barefoot, so that they don’t hear that I am pacing, racking my brains. I am alone i
n a world of master conspirators. The Duke of Buckingham and Lady Margaret are working together, or perhaps they are working for themselves. They are pretending to serve me, to be allies, or perhaps they are loyal and I am wrong to mistrust them. My mind goes round and round and I pull the hair at my temples as if the pain could make me think.

  I have ill-wished Richard, the tyrant, but his death can wait. He imprisoned my boys, but it is not he who is spreading the rumor that they are dead. He was holding them in prison against their will, against my will; but he was not preparing the people for their deaths. He has taken the throne and he has taken the title Prince of Wales by lies and deception. He does not need to kill them to get his own way. He is triumphant already, without murdering my son. He got all he wanted without blood on his hands, so there is no need for him to kill Edward now. Richard is safe on the throne, the council has accepted him, the lords have accepted him, he is on a royal progress in a country that greets him with joy. There is a rebellion in the making, of my making; but he thinks Howard has put it down. As far as he knows he is safe. He need only keep my boys imprisoned until I am ready to accept my defeat, as Elizabeth urges me to do.

  But the Duke of Buckingham has a claim to inherit the throne that would follow that of Richard’s line—but only if my sons were dead. His claim is no good unless my sons are dead. If Richard’s sickly son were to die and Richard were to fall in battle and Buckingham were leading the victorious rebellion, then Buckingham could take the crown. Nobody would deny that he is the next heir—especially if everyone knew that my sons were already dead. Then Buckingham would do just as my Edward did when he claimed the crown; but there was a rival claimant in the Tower. When my Edward entered London at the head of a victorious army, he went straightaway with his two brothers into the Tower of London, where the true king was prisoner and they killed him, though Henry had no more strength than an innocent boy. When the Duke of Buckingham defeats Richard, he will march into London and into the Tower saying he will have the truth about my boys. Then there will be a pause, long enough for people to remember the rumors and start to fear, and Buckingham will come out, tragic-faced, and say that he has found my boys dead, buried under a paving stone, or hidden in a cupboard, murdered by their wicked uncle Richard. This is the truth of the rumor that he himself started. He will say that, since they are dead, he will take the throne and there will be nobody left alive to deny him.

  And Buckingham is Constable of England. He has the keys to the Tower in his hands right now.

  I nibble my finger and pause at the window. So much for Buckingham. Now let me consider my great friend Lady Margaret Stanley and her son Henry Tudor. They are the heirs of the House of Lancaster; she might think it time England turned to Lancaster again. She has to ally with Buckingham and with my followers; the Tudor boy cannot bring in enough foreign recruits to defeat Richard on his own. He has lived his life in exile: this is his chance to come back to England and come back as king. She would be a fool to take such a risk as rebelling against Richard for anything less than the throne. Her new husband is an essential ally of Richard’s; they are well placed in this new court. She has negotiated her son’s forgiveness and safe return to England with Richard. She has been allowed to hand her lands over to her son, as his inheritance. Would she throw all this into jeopardy for the pleasure of putting my son on the throne to oblige me? Why would she? Why ever would she take such a risk? Is she not more likely to be working for her own son to claim the throne? She and Buckingham together are preparing the country to learn that my sons are dead, at Richard’s hand.

  Would Henry Tudor be hard enough of heart to march into the Tower declaring he is bent on rescue, strangle two boys, and come out with the dreadful news that the princes, for whom he was bravely fighting, are dead? Could he and his great friend and ally Buckingham divide up the kingdom together: Henry Tudor taking his fiefdom of Wales, Buckingham taking the north? Or if Buckingham was dead in battle, would Henry not be the uncontested heir to the throne? Would his mother send her servants into the Tower, not to save my boy, but to suffocate him as he sleeps? Could she bear to do that, saintly woman as she is? Would she countenance anything for her son, even the death of mine? I don’t know. I can’t know. All I can know for certain is that the duke and Lady Margaret are spreading the word, even while they are marching out to fight for the princes, that they believe the princes are already dead, and her ally lets slip that the two boys are killed in bed. The only man not preparing the world to mourn their deaths, the only man who does not benefit from their deaths, is the one whom I thought was my mortal enemy: Richard of Gloucester.

  It takes me all day to measure my danger, and even at dinnertime I cannot be sure of anything. The lives of my sons may depend on who I sense as my enemy and who I trust as my friend and yet I cannot be certain. My suggestion—that my son Richard at least is safe and away from the Tower—should give any murderer pause; I hope I have bought some time.

  In the afternoon I write to my brothers as they are raising men in the southern counties of England, to warn them of this plot that may be hatching like a snake in its egg inside our plot. I say that our enemy Richard is still our enemy; but his ill-will may be nothing to the danger posed by our allies. I send out messengers, uncertain if they will ever reach my brothers, or reach them in time. But I say clearly:

  I believe now that the safety of my sons, of myself, depends on the Duke of Buckingham and his ally Henry Tudor not reaching London. Richard is our enemy and a usurper, but I believe if Buckingham and Tudor march into London in victory they will come as our killers.You must stop Buckingham’s march. Whatever you do, you must get to the Tower ahead of him and ahead of Henry Tudor and save our boy.

  That night I stand at the window over the river and listen. Elizabeth opens the door of the bedroom where the girls sleep and comes to stand behind me, her young face grave.

  “What is the matter now, Mother?” she says. “Please tell me. You have been locked up all day. Have you had bad news?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Tell me, have you heard the river singing, like it did on the night that my brother Anthony and my son Richard Grey died?”

  Her eyes slide away from mine.

  “Elizabeth?”

  “Not like that night,” she qualifies.

  “But you hear something?”

  “Very faintly,” she says, “a very soft, low singing like a lullaby, like a lament. Do you hear nothing?”

  I shake my head. “No, but I am filled with fear for Edward.”

  She comes and puts her hand on mine. “Is there new danger for my poor brother, even now?”

  “I think so. I think that the Duke of Buckingham will turn on us if he wins this battle against the false King Richard. I have written to your uncles, but I don’t know if they can stop him. The Duke of Buckingham has a great army. He is marching along the River Severn in Wales and then he will come into England, and I don’t know what I can do. I don’t know what I can do from here to keep my son safe from him, to keep us all safe from him. We have to keep him from London. If I could trap him in Wales, I would.”

  She looks thoughtful and goes to the window. The damp air from the river breathes into the stuffy rooms. “I wish it would rain,” she says idly. “It’s so hot. I so wish it would rain.”

  A cool breeze whispers into the room as if to answer her wish, and then the pit, pat, pit of raindrops on the leaded panes of the open window. Elizabeth swings open the window wider so that she can see the sky and the dark clouds blowing down the river valley.

  I go to stand beside her. I can see the rain falling on the dark water of the river, fat drops of rain that make the first few circles, like the bubbles from a fish, and then more and more, until the silky surface of the river is pitted with falling raindrops and then the storm comes down so hard that we can see nothing but a whirl of falling water as if the very heavens are opening on England. We laugh and pull the window shut against the storm, our faces and arms running with wat
er before we get the clasp bolted, and then we go to the other rooms, closing the windows and barring the shutters against the weather that is pouring down outside, as if all my grief and worry were a storm of tears over England.

  “This rain will bring a flood,” I predict, and my daughter nods in silence.

  It rains all night. Elizabeth sleeps in my bed as she used to do when she was a child, and we lie in the warm and dry, and listen to the pattering of the drops. We can hear the constant wash against the windows and the splashing on the river. Then the gutters start to fill and the water from the roofs runs with a sound like fountains playing, and we fall asleep, like two water goddesses to the sound of driving rain and rising water.

  When we wake in the morning it is almost as dark as night, and it is still raining. It is high tide, and Elizabeth goes down to the water gate and says the water is rising over the steps. All the craft on the river are battened down for bad weather, and the few wherries that are plying for trade are rowed by men hunched against the wind with sacks over their heads, shiny with the wet. The girls spend the morning up at the windows watching the soaked boats go by. They are riding higher than usual as the river fills and starts to flood, and then the little boats are all taken in and moored or hauled up as the river goes into spate and the currents are too strong. We light a fire against the stormy day; it is as dark and wet as November, and I play cards with the girls and let them win. How I love the sound of this rain.