Virgin Widow

by Anne O'Brien

  ‘So, like Clarence, you would condemn her? Is that what you want?’

  Abandoning the all-but-ruined quill at last, Richard turned the ring I had once given him on his little finger as he thought to soften the words. Even so the truth was hard, difficult. ‘If you press me—I want a settlement to the benefit of all, I suppose.’

  ‘At the expense of my mother?’

  ‘No, not at her expense. But neither can I stand idly by and let Clarence strip the whole parcel of her land and power for himself in the name of your sister. Nor would you want that.’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t. But to demean the Countess in such a manner is an affront to love and affection.’ So calm and reasoned his argument, but calm reasoning had no part in this vicious campaign against my mother. Sensing emotions building inside me, I clenched my fingers harder into the flesh of his forearm, even when he winced. ‘They would take all she has, everything, until she is destitute with no thought for her pride. Shall I be a party to it also? How can I condemn Isabel for her part in it if I seek my own portion at the Countess’s expense?’ The thought appalled me, that I should be guilty of the same greed as my sister. ‘Chivalry, in truth, is dead,’ I added bitterly.

  ‘Yet see this, Anne.’ Richard would not allow me to lose my sense of the whole. ‘If we do not engage in this war, you will forfeit all. Both you and the Countess. I will fight for your rights, but…’ He hesitated, then added carefully, choosing his words, ‘It may be that the Countess is the one to pay the heavy cost. It may be the only way.’ Now he stood, drawing me with him. ‘Most of all I want you not to be troubled. Your health is very precious to me.’

  ‘And that of the child!’ My reply might be sharp, but his arms were strong about me and I held tight. His love enfolded me when all around seemed stark with hatred and malice.

  ‘That, too.’ His lips were soft against the hollow at my temple, his breath warm against my cheek.

  ‘My health, as far as I am aware, is not a problem, Richard!’ I would not quite give him the victory. Or allow him to distract me. ‘My mother is the problem!’

  ‘I know.’ He was smiling down at me, appreciative of my tactics. ‘And I can’t yet give you an answer, however much you become a nagging wife.’

  ‘I am no nagging wife!’ But I let it go with a huff of breath. He had gone as far as he would to reassuring me. His kisses did more.

  ‘So what do I tell her?’ I asked when I was once more seated, inky quill in hand, and my heart settled into its normal rhythm.

  ‘The truth, as you have. That it is in Edward’s hands. I think that she sees the future, without your spelling it out.’

  Am I to remain here for ever? Yes. She saw her future clearly.

  So I took Richard’s advice. When I was alone in my chamber I fought against the inclination to weep. It was a life sentence that Clarence connived at and at that moment I felt the loss of my mother’s presence far more than I feared for land or property. All I could do was to leave the burden of it with Richard, that somehow he would foil Clarence’s plans. And that somehow my mother would not have to pay the heaviest cost.

  ‘I don’t suppose I can come and listen.’

  ‘No.’

  Well, that was plain enough!

  Edward would hold the meeting of the King’s Council in the formality of the great panelled and tapestried audience chamber at Westminster. Sitting in bed, frowning heavily as Richard readied himself for the occasion, I sniffed my derision. The magnificence of the setting would be suitably fitting to decide who would get their hands on my mother’s vast wealth, but my mood was sour. Whatever the outcome, the Countess would not come out of it with her prayers answered.

  I pouted as Richard sat on the edge of the bed to pull on a pair of leather boots. So he must put his case for his claim on my mother’s inheritance, must plead my claim, without my presence. It sat ill with me.

  ‘I have as much right to be there as the Councillors.’

  ‘You have no right, dear heart.’ Leaning his forearms on his thighs, hands loosely clasped, he smiled at my fractious insistence, knowing its root cause was fear. He knew me too well. ‘You’re not a Councillor. Besides, you know the arguments—you’ve heard them all. Isabel is older and therefore the heiress. Clarence is eminently fit to administer the property and has a call on Edward’s gratitude. Whilst you…’ he rose, walked round the bed to collect a business-like sheaf of documents, raising a hand to smooth my tumbled hair in passing ‘…you, my petulant love, were wed to the Lancastrian traitor. You deserve nothing! Why would you wish to sit through the same accusations again, with the ranks of the Council picking them apart with their grubby fingers?’

  ‘Mmm! Not an attractive picture!’ But he was, I thought, as he shrugged into the close-fitting dark blue tunic, applying a comb to his disordered hair before hunting out a smart beaver hat. Clasping my arms around my knees, I watched as he proceeded to put the finishing touches. The impressive chain of office, the ring brooch fastened into the soft fur of the beaver. ‘But I want to listen to you. And ill wish Clarence, of course.’

  ‘You can ill wish him from a distance.’ And his sharp glance was a warning. He buckled on his sword belt, squared his shoulders against the weight of the chain so that the rubies gleamed balefully, red as blood, and came to stand before me.

  ‘Well?’

  Jewelled, fur trimmed, dark hose and tunic flatteringly moulded to his figure, he was magnificent. He might not have the golden beauty or the stature of his two brothers, but he took my eye. I hid a smile. I would not add to his consequence.

  ‘Good enough,’ I managed.

  ‘Unfortunately—’ the curl of his mouth was wry ‘—Clarence has an impressive appearance.’

  ‘Clarence is an arrogant unprincipled bastard!’

  ‘Arrogant and unprincipled, certainly. I can’t vouch for my lady mother’s constancy. Now, kiss me before I go.’

  I did. His hands were warm on my shoulders. His lips a strong promise on mine. ‘Pray God that my words are persuasive.’

  ‘I will. Soft, persistent as summer rain, to drench Edward to the skin before he realises it. Better than a winter deluge.’

  ‘More subtle, certainly. Edward likes subtlety.’ Drawn by my hands in his, Richard sat again for a brief moment on the side of the bed to brush my hair away from my face. ‘What will you do?’

  ‘I can’t stay here on my own or I’ll sink into despair. I’ll go to the Queen, I think. There’ll be conversation and spiced gossip if nothing else to occupy my mind.’

  ‘If you must.’ I noted the lack of enthusiasm. His hostility to the Woodville Queen remained as strong as ever. ‘As long as you give no weight to anything she says. The Queen has deep ambitions. What are you thinking?’ he asked, chin cocked.

  That she had already given me advice—of a questionable nature—that I had acted upon. But I would not tell him that. ‘Only that I love you.’ Which was not untrue.

  ‘Which I shall keep by me as a talisman to my good fortune.’ His smile was confident, the quick pressure of his mouth on mine firm. ‘I shall come and find you.’

  ‘God keep you, dear Richard. God give you victory.’

  Were those not the words the Prince had demanded from me before Tewkesbury? And, knowing that he intended to hunt Richard down, to destroy him in a fit of blind vengeful hatred, I had refused to give them. There had been no victory for the Prince that day, only an all-encompassing defeat. Left alone, I simply sat and stared blindly at the gleaming linen fold panelling as I prayed with mounting anxiety that Richard would not suffer similar ill fortune.

  Chapter Twenty

  I WAS not destined to reach the Queen’s private rooms. As I stepped into the antechamber, chance had brought Isabel on the same errand, to hear the outcome as soon as it was known. This was our first meeting since I had been released by Richard from Cold Harbour. I had not sought my sister out since my return to Court, nor had she found a need to visit me. What could we possibly ha
ve said to each other that wasn’t full of denunciation and blame?

  Her face was suddenly cold and still, as a winter pool is held motionless with the beginnings of ice. But that’s not what took my notice. Beneath the shuttered withdrawal, Isabel was ill and unhappy, features drawn from too many disturbed nights and too little nourishment. There was a crow’s-foot of lines beside her eyes of which I had no memory. Isabel, always the beautiful daughter, to my eyes looked far older than the five years that separated us.

  Clearly the tight knot of resentment that existed in my breast also afflicted Isabel, who drew back, as if she would not wish to contaminate her skirts.

  ‘I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to find you here, your Grace!’ Her face pale and bleak, any animation draining away as whey from a dish of curds. ‘Come to whisper in the Queen’s ear, have you? To buy her support against Clarence?’

  ‘Isabel! I came to see if there was news,’ I retaliated.

  Isabel’s reply was as sharp as the furrows on her forehead, her eyes raking me from head to foot. ‘Did you? You seem confident enough of the outcome, your Grace. I expect you’ll be delighted if Gloucester’s victory is at my expense.’

  ‘I am not confident of anything!’ Would she not even acknowledge me as her sister, call me by my given name? Her present hostility was as painful as her past treatment of me. ‘I have no liking for any of this…’

  ‘I think I will not stay…’

  ‘Because I am here?’ I accused. ‘I am the injured party here, Isabel. You would disinherit me!’

  She ran her tongue over dry lips and would not look at me. ‘You have no rights. It is not fit that you should take any of our mother’s lands…’ Reciting some sort of truth as she understood it, I realised, learned by rote at Clarence’s knee.

  ‘Neither of us should have our mother’s lands! She is not dead!’ Anger at her cruelty stirred me into accusations that I had not intended to make. ‘The Countess wrote to you, because she thought you would be a loving daughter and would bring some influence to bear! You did not reply. You did nothing to give her hope.’ I couldn’t stop the words, even though Isabel’s eyes swam with tears. ‘She thinks you have rejected her. As you have.’

  ‘Yes. I have.’

  How infinitely merciless. It was beyond my understanding. ‘How could you do that, Isabel? She loved you and nurtured you since the day you were born. She saved your life when you could have died on that accursed ship off Calais. She is your mother. She loves you.’

  ‘No! She damned me. She let my child die. She is the cause of all my sorrows.’ Isabel covered her face with her hands.

  Such a shattering accusation. It dropped into the atmosphere like a stone, uttered with such grief that my furious denial was stopped on a sharp intake of breath. When had she thought this? Had she then always thought it, that the dead babe was caused by some oversight in our mother’s care? That the Countess could by some miraculous power have changed that tragic outcome as our ship rode the storm in the reaches off Calais? I had no idea, not the slightest suspicion that such a thought had ever taken root in her mind.

  ‘Isabel! It is not so! I was there and I know it. The Countess did all she could and more…Margery, too.’

  ‘My child died. I lost Clarence’s heir. I should have the inheritance in recompense. Clarence says…’

  It was lost in a hiccupping sob, but I did not need to hear what Clarence had said. It all clicked together in my mind, as neat and complete as a ring in a horse’s bridle. Reunited with Clarence for almost a year, she had still not quickened to carry the heir that Clarence desired. And Clarence was already blaming her for her failure. It wrung my heart, so that I cast aside my anger and moved to block her retreat, to attempt some sort of reconciliation, despite everything. Still she shrank from me as if she could not bear my closeness.

  ‘Isabel. Don’t do this.’

  ‘Don’t do what?’ She snatched her hand away from my tentative touch. ‘Who would blame me if I refused to take the hand of a traitor, my own sister who would deny me my place as my mother’s heir? Who would attack me for mourning the death of my child? Don’t touch me!’ Her control wavered as hysteria rose in her voice, her eyes wide with inexplicable hatred. ‘My child should never have died. I will never carry another, I know it. Clarence will never have his heir and I must carry the blame. At least if he wins the Beauchamp lands…’

  All I could do was stand and watch as Isabel disintegrated into helpless sobbing. Isabel’s miseries, her motives, were written clear as black ink on a sheet of finest vellum. Afraid of Clarence, of his criticism, his biting tongue, she hoped he would love her again if he could get his grasping hands on all the Countess’s inheritance. And Isabel, misguided, vulnerable Isabel, would support him in it, even if it meant learning to hate her sister and her mother.

  For nothing was clearer to me than here was Clarence’s work, destroying all Isabel’s fine judgement, all that bound us together in the past. It must be Clarence. How could Isabel not remember those critical hours in that hot and airless cabin? When Isabel had wept and cried in her agony, the Countess had turned back her sleeves, tucked up her skirts, and worked through those terrible conditions to bring her daughter and the child to safety. None of the ultimate tragedy had been her fault.

  Oh, Isabel. How wrongly you have read it. How unhappy you must be. And I can do nothing to comfort you.

  As helpless tears pricked behind my eyelids, it forced on me a decision. I would not tell Isabel of my own pregnancy. I dared not, not today. One day she must know, but not yet. The pain for her would be beyond bearing. And what hope now of smoothing over this rift between us?

  None that I could see.

  ‘Isabel is the elder.’ Clarence’s increasingly strident tone preceded him to the door of the Queen’s antechamber where Isabel and I were still trapped in an agony of raw emotion. ‘Who is more fit to administer the property than I? And you owe me, Edward. Whichever way you argue it, my wife’s loyalties are beyond question…’

  Unlike her sister’s!

  Not again! I made no effort to hide my exasperation as they entered to immediately crowd and dominate the little wood-panelled room. Clarence did not even take the time to acknowledge Isabel. Richard, bringing up the rear and to whom my eyes were automatically drawn, grimaced silently in my direction with raised brows.

  So nothing had been settled between them. The air reeked with the stench of hostility and the heat of temper. Why have a public debate if Edward was still of a mood to prevaricate? I listened crossly as Clarence persisted in battering our ears with the same force of his argument. I was so weary of it. I would have taken every acre, every gold coin from Clarence for his impertinence in overlooking me, and given it all to Richard, but Edward could not, of course. Nor would it be right to rob Isabel, however much I might once have contemplated revenge. Her sorrow and the intimate nature of it had drawn the bitterness from me. As for Edward, frustration dragged at his broad features as Clarence grasped his arm to make the point. To alienate Clarence now, as Edward well knew, would be to dig a bottomless trench into which we all might fall. The King, whatever else, was awake to every danger, although at present annoyance had the upper hand.

  ‘You already have all the Neville estates to which your wife is entitled.’

  ‘She is entitled to the Countess’s estates as well.’

  ‘Your wife is entitled to half. You cannot unravel the Neville settlements for the two girls.’

  ‘Why not? You can unravel, as you put it, whatever needs to be unravelled. It is what I want.’

  ‘And what I want is for you to be more amenable, brother. The spirit of compromise would be a blessing in this dispute.’

  ‘Amenable? I think this is no time to be amenable—’

  So far Richard had stood on the edge of the exchange. ‘Sire,’ he broke in, his voice at its quietest, cutting through the fury. ‘There is one argument, strongly in my wife’s favour, that I chose not to use in the cou
ncil chamber.’

  ‘Another argument? By God, Gloucester! I thought we’d wrung every last farthing out of it. I hoped we had!’ Querulous, irritable, the King’s reply did not augur well. But my interest was caught. I thought I knew all Richard’s ploys.

  ‘No. A private matter, and still early days. I would not wish to announce it publicly.’ Deliberately Richard turned his head to look at me, over his shoulder, a sort of warning. I knew immediately what he would say. And, oh! how I wished he would not. As he faced the exasperated Edward again to add the final persuasion, my own eyes focused on Isabel, who listened half-heartedly if at all; her mind seemed to be centred on her tightly clasped fingers.

  ‘Richard…!’ I whispered. Don’t do it!

  Of course it was not worth the saying. How could I have explained? And so I must allow Richard to speak as he wished. Although such an announcement should have been an occasion for joy, I tightened my lips and listened as my heart sank.

  ‘Anne carries my child. My heir.’

  Ill humour forgotten in an instant, Edward guffawed, drowning a whimper from Isabel at my side. ‘You haven’t wasted time, Dickon!’

  In no manner distracted, Richard laid his case stone upon stone to build a formidable bulwark. ‘Not only is it legal that my wife have a claim on the Countess’s inheritance, as was always intended, but equally the child, my heir, should have a claim on the lands of his grandmother. The child will not be born with this matter still in dispute simply because Clarence is intransigent. My wife is no more a traitor than he is. We all know Clarence took an oath of loyalty to Edward of Lancaster and he did it of his own free will, whereas my wife’s marriage to the Prince was at the instigation of her father. It was not her decision or to her liking, she suffered at his hands and saw his ultimate death as a blessed relief. Now she carries my child, the next generation to buttress the house of York for the future.’