Princess of Thorns

by Saga Hillbom

  The Queen makes a show to leave but my uncle catches her hand. ‘Anne?’

  ‘It is no good, Rich.’

  ‘I know. By God, I know, I—’ He draws a hand over his face as if to pull a veil of composure of over his bewildered eyes.

  The Queen cups her husband’s face in her hands. They are small and dainty, like those of the child she once was, and her short stature does little to dissuade the youthful impression. ‘Together we are strong. Together, we can weather this storm.’

  He remains motionless for a moment before giving a nod. ‘Yes. Together. What have I dragged you into, ma belle?’

  ‘I believe I did my fair share of the dragging. You’re the King now, yes? Kings do not weep.’ She brushes away the single tear that has spilled over and is trailing a path down his cheek, her own eyes glistening wet.

  When their lips meet, I avert my eyes and retreat on light feet. As I escape the chapel, something nasty stirs in my stomach. I know Mother is right, I know Elizabeth and Anne speak the truth: my brothers, my angels, are with all likelihood lost to us, vanished or dead, and I ought to hate the man who was responsible for their safety, regardless of who ordered their removal. I want to, I do, but I cannot. In this, the Woodville flair fails me.

  It is peculiar how the things one sees can play with one’s heartstrings until one feels as though they might snap.

  Chapter VIII

  SHERIFF HUTTON IS a place of marvel, or it is to me, after nearly a year in the college hall. Although the Yorkshire castle cannot compete with any of the palaces that I am more familiar with, and although it is far too distant from London for my liking, I thank my lucky star upon arriving.

  The castle is a rustic, quadrangular building, its four ranges connected by one square tower in each corner, framing an open courtyard. I count the oblong windows and conclude there are five stories in the main buildings, while the towers poke the sky above that. The walls are made of brick and mortar, thick as Dorset’s head in late evenings. With the rolling green hills and fields stretching as far as the eye can see, our new home resembles a jointure of fortress and country retreat.

  ‘It looks very much like the castle from an old legend,’ Anne says, clapping her hands.

  I ruffle her hair. ‘You say that about anything. But it is lovely at least if one does not lament over Westminster or Windsor.’

  Mother takes Kate in one hand and Bridget in the other as we enter the open courtyard through the arched gateway, and says, ‘Gloucester wants to keep us at safe distance. He knows full well you girls have royal blood in your veins.’

  ‘He’d be a fool not to. But he could have placed us somewhere far worse, and he did not. Besides, we shall be in good company.’

  I am gratified as soon as we enter the castle. The painted plaster walls are coated in thick tapestries to keep out the chill of winter storms; the furniture is only a notch below that of our old chambers; every room is redolent with the scent of lavender and leather and cedarwood. I believe I can be comfortable here, especially when spring buds in earnest and we can stroll through the picturesque landscape.

  The company, on the other hand, turns out to be quite the disappointment. There are three other noteworthy occupants at Sheriff Hutton, all of whom are our cousins, and none of whom we know particularly well. The head of the household is John de la Pole, my father’s sister’s son, a strapping young man with wily eyes and a pointy beard the colour of a fox. He is rarely here, his duties as Earl of Lincoln requiring him to be at court or at Sandal Castle, a fact which does wonders in making me find him agreeable. When he is here, he frequently stands too close to me, brushing a hand against my back when passing by or touching my foot with his under the dinner table, but he is a staunch Yorkist and adroit, too. Nasty or not, he is a possible future husband, at least if Uncle Richard continues to lavish favours upon him, and if our consanguinity is overlooked as it so frequently is.

  My two other cousins are much younger than Lincoln: Edward, Earl of Warwick, is nine years of age and his sister Meg eleven. They are Clarence's offspring and as such I have always found it difficult to befriend them. Their own attitude towards us is suspicious, also, because since they were orphaned, they have been Dorset’s wards, and learnt to associate the name Woodville with their tactless guardian, though there must be more to it than that. We have spent limited time together as children, and I do not know them well enough to tell.

  Young Warwick is a provocatively pretty child with an equally pretty singing voice and, I believe, a heart free from malice—buts that is where the praise ends. Days on end, he rambles and shouts about how this castle belongs to him simply because he is Warwick the Kingmaker’s grandson, going as far as to say he should be king. It must have escaped him that he lost his right to inherit anything the moment his father was convicted of high treason and attainted, and his title as Earl is only a courtesy from my father. Mayhap he will turn to the Lancastrians just like Clarence did. When he does not rail over all he thinks he is entitled to, he causes havoc with his rough games and pranks. If only he was as sweet as Dickie, I might have taken to transferring my affections to him, but no, comparing the two of them is like comparing a badger to a puppy. I know he means no harm, he never does, but he also does not know better.

  Meg is a tougher nut to crack, or at least understand. Despite the age gap between her and her brother being narrow, she has taken on the role of his adoptive mother, scolding and protecting. I never once hear her encourage his illusions, though, in fact she barely mentions court at all. They are nothing alike in looks, either, because where Young Warwick is soft-cheeked and rosy, Meg reminds me of a haggard old woman with her long, bony face and sickly complexion. Her small mouth puckers whenever she looks at us—except for Anne, whom she occasionally sits and reads with in silence. In spite of all this, I cannot deny there is sharp intelligence flickering in her eyes, and I can imagine her thoughts darting between observations and conclusions, clicking like an abacus.

  ‘Why is she so…strange, Lady Mother? She cannot believe I’ll soften towards her if she looks at me like that,’ I say one day in late March as Mother and I walk along the outside of the south range, plucking wildflowers.

  My gown and hands are stained with grass and we have only found enough daisies for a meagre bouquet. The sun is hard and bright like a chip of white gold in the sky; it is growing warmer by the day. I relish in the crispness of the fresh air and the open landscape, still starved on such simple things after our confinement to the abbey.

  Mother tilts her head back, bathing her features in splashes of sunlight. ‘The girl is infested with her late parents’ superstitions towards me and, hence, you. She has not accepted the natural causes of her mother’s death, just like so many of her kin. I believe you remember that Clarence had two innocent servants executed for the murder of Isabel Neville when he found he could not crush me.’

  ‘I thought they had forgotten that…that nonsense. Surely, everyone knows it was naught but childbed fever?’

  ‘Rumours are not so easily extinguished, my sweet. My mother, too, suffered under their yoke, as did her mother.’

  ‘But there’s no truth in them. Is there?’

  She studies me a moment in silence, her hooded dragon eyes burning on mine. ‘If I could indeed wield magic, your father would never have died, and we would not be here.’

  ‘Will you not tell Meg that?’

  ‘You are mistaken if you expect the girl will listen to reason. A vice inherited from both her parents, I daresay.’

  ‘Yet she is no dimwit at all—I do dislike her less than her brother. I thought…I thought perhaps he’d be like our Dickie. They are almost the same age.’ I clench the bouquet to keep my hands from shaking.

  Mother’s granite silence reigns for a moment before she at last replies in an oddly recoiling voice. ‘Do you blame me for your brothers’ disappearances, my sweet?’

  The words she uses are painfully clear to m
e. ‘Are’, not ‘were’. ‘Disappearances’, not ‘deaths’. At times, they live in our speech, if nowhere else.

  ‘You thought the soldiers would storm the abbey and take him by force if you did not, Lady Mother.’

  ‘I wonder if the common people will remember that. My boys…’ She wrings her hands until I fear the rings will cut into her skin. ‘I thank the Almighty every night I still have my eldest, but he may yet be taken from me.’

  ‘He should not have participated in the rebellion.’

  ‘We had to try.’

  I squat to the ground and pluck another daisy. ‘You still have us girls and your grandchildren. And soon you will have another one!’

  ‘Agnes Lambert’s babe? If I involved myself in all the results of my Thomas’ foolishness, I would not know where to start.’

  ‘Agnes is different, Lady Mother. She’s lowly born, but I do care for her.’

  ‘It is not her lack of lineage that concerns me, but rather her conduct and influence on you in thought as well as in action.’

  I kick my heels against the ground as we continue our walk. I suspect she is referring to my dishevelled appearance that Christmas Day. She is right, although I hate to admit it. I miss my sketching friend more with each passing day, and it physically hurts. I often catch myself rushing to tell him how one of the cats caught the fattest rat thus far or how I heard a servant tell a bawdy joke, before realising he is three hundred miles south.

  At least Mother can tick my inconvenient friendship off her tally of anxieties.

  I break the seal with curiosity simmering in my stomach. Few people correspond directly with me apart from a relative here or there, and I have never been a skilled letter-writer. Elizabeth has called my handwriting ‘a thorough travesty’ ever since we were little, and unfortunately, she is right.

  The message consists of four lines. Four ink-smeared, fatal lines. I crumple the paper in my fist, my vision blurring. I am alone, not just in my bedchamber, but in my grief. No other living soul will mourn the death of Agnes Lambert. Perhaps Dorset would drink himself into a stupor if he knew—if not for her sake then for the baby following her into the grave—but attempting to contact him in Brittany would be perceived as treason regardless of one’s reason, and not worth the peril.

  I topple down on the thick coverlets of my bed, pull my knees up to my chin, and draw the bed hangings around me. Is there no end to the searing pain of death? My sister Mary, Father, Rivers and Grey, presumably my brothers, and now Agnes… Whenever I regain my spirits a little, someone else is stricken down. Let the sky cave in and crush the earth for all I care.

  I do my best to smooth out the letter, then read it three more times, still lying on my side, the embroidered cover damp under my eye. The steward of the household offers no details, not even the sex of the baby, yet the images flash in my mind. Rumpled sheets drenched in blood, screams tearing the air in invisible shreds, the midwife’s red hands, a fleshy lump swathed in linen without the chance of being christened, a miscoloured little foot sticking out from underneath the cloth. Agnes’ unseeing eyes, never to soak up the sun again.

  I scan the lines one last time. No, the steward says nothing of the funeral. No doubt it was a humble ceremony performed in haste for a ‘fallen woman’. How did they know whom to address the letter to? She must have spoken of us, mentioned my name. I make a mental note to pray for her soul. Perchance it will ease the impending nightmares.

  I refuse to leave my bedchamber. Mother pleads and commands; Kate pulls my arm, her pointy nails digging at my sleeve, but to no avail. I am weary of life.

  To my astonishment, Elizabeth comes to Sheriff Hutton around noon the following day. She says she is here to comfort me. However, I figure she must have left court—which is currently at Nottingham Castle, since the royal couple are on a northern progress—several days ago and only learned of my loss upon her arrival. Knowing Elizabeth, she likely begged Uncle Richard to send her away awhile, seeking refuge from the nobles’ scheming circles.

  I am woken by my oldest sister’s cool, clear voice. ‘It hurts Mother to see you so desolate, Cecily.’

  When I raise my raw face from the pillow, she is standing in the doorway. ‘Do you not think I am hurting?’ I mumble.

  ‘I know you are. Please, Cecily, come out. You only add to her misery.’

  ‘It is the last thing I want. But do you ever feel? You never show anything. I do not think you understand.’

  The mattress squeaks as Elizabeth sits down by my feet. ‘I feel every bit as much as you do. I keep it inside for all our weal.’

  ‘I could never do that! I try, I do, but—’

  ‘Yes, you can, Cecily… Where’s your sense of duty? Women cannot heed impulses, least of all we.’

  ‘It’s not fair.’

  ‘You want so many things, but you have to acquire more decorum.’

  ‘Like you? All the decorum in the world does not change that you are willing to remain betrothed to Henry Tudor! A Lancastrian king, I might almost have fathomed it, but now he is a mere Lancastrian exile, and I confess I do not think he will ever be more than that.’ I regret my words the minute they bounce off my lips, because now I am the one to be unfair.

  ‘I keep my promise to Tudor for Mother’s sake, for our family’s sake!’

  ‘Truly?’

  ‘I dislike it as much as you do, but I know my place in this world. If Tudor prevails, your fortune depends on my marriage to him. We cannot discard that possibility, and someone has to serve as his reason to look kindly upon us. Mother has not gambled me without good cause. We mustn’t be ungrateful for her love and guidance.’ Elizabeth spreads her hands on her lap in a solicitous gesture. Her slender fingers lack ornaments and rings, more beautiful in their simplicity than any I have seen. The one deficiency is her nails, which she has chewed down to the skin, as she tends to do when distressed.

  ‘Well. I am not so very good at displaying gratitude.’

  ‘But you feel it, surely, Cecily?’

  I nod.

  ‘Here. Dry your eyes and dab your face with cold water. You have to come out sooner or later, and we all prefer sooner.’

  I obey, and after another hour, I have re-emerged into the world of the living. Later, we sup together. I am ravenous, having eaten nothing the past twenty-four hours, and I take secret pleasure in watching the colour return to my mother’s cheeks when she sees me delve into a butter-crust pie. This time, Elizabeth is in the right. I shall do my utmost to mourn alone, and shelve my loss at the back of my mind.

  The news spread like a wildfire in the castle in early April. The Prince of Wales is dead, leaving his father and mother grief-stricken and out of their wits. The life of their one son, their one hope of securing their branch of the Plantagenet dynasty through direct descent, has been snuffed out like the flickering candle it always was. A single child is never enough; it would have been a stroke of luck if he had survived every hazard. My mother was a wonder: though God snatches an ever-increasing number of her children, she gave birth to enough of us to afford it. Of course, her heart never afforded it, but that is a different matter.

  I pray for the dead prince and above all his parents, who must be utterly desolate, and I pray that my credit with the Lord is not entirely non-existent.

  The afternoon after we receive the message, we gather in a comfortable chamber situated in the east tower: my three younger sisters, Meg, Young Warwick, and myself. Anne and Meg are huddled up on the plush pillows in the window seat with books on their laps, Bridget is sat between them like a doll, and I am trying to concentrate on my lute over the noise of Warwick and Kate chattering. Two servant boys stand poised by the wall, holding platters of sweetmeats. They are, to the delight of us all, our sole supervisors for a brief while.

  ‘He has no heir! He has no heir!’ Young Warwick bellows. ‘I’ll be on the throne soon, as soon as Uncle Richard dies!’

  Meg leaps to her feet an
d clasps her knobby hand over his mouth. ‘Eddie! Hush!’

  Insinuating the death of the King is treason, no matter how innocently it is spoken, and people have been executed for less, although I highly doubt Uncle Richard would harm a hair on the boy’s head. After all, the Warwick-children are the Queen’s nephew and niece as well as his own.

  ‘You are not the heir,’ I say, putting down the lute and crossing my arms. ‘The Earl of Lincoln is older, and you are the son of a Lancaster-traitor!’

  Young Warwick sticks out his tongue at me and rushes from the room, feet banging against the floor.

  ‘Cece!’ Kate exclaims, pouting. ‘That’s not nice!’

  ‘It’s true.’

  To replace one young Edward, Prince of Wales, with an even younger one makes little sense to me, especially when an act of attainder has to be reversed by Parliament to permit the inheritance. No, it will be Lincoln for certs, who has already proven himself capable and loyal. The prospect of wedding him at once becomes a hundred times more appealing: I could be queen. Fancy that! But Elizabeth would be his first pick, if he even cast a glance on our bastardized lot, and I am not so sure he would. In a single moment, my hopes are both ignited and dashed.

  I turn to Anne. ‘How did he die?’

  ‘I do not know. He was always sickly. Lady Mother says it is divine retribution.’

  ‘She told you that?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her voice is a mere whisper. ‘Do you think so, too?’

  I pace the room with my arms still crossed, kicking my skirts in order to not trip on the hem. ‘How would I know? But it grieves me, it does. I think Queen Anne loved him terribly much—her only child. He fell and scraped his knee once, if you recall that one time when we met him at Eltham, and the Queen was like a wounded bear with her only cub.’