The White Queen of Middleham: An historical novel about Richard III's wife Anne Neville (Sprigs of Broom Book 1)

by Lesley Nickell

  On the fifth night they reached Southampton, and Anne realised with great alarm that they were going to cross the sea. She had expected, and gathered that Isabel had too, that their father would be their destination. But there was only the sullen dark hulk of a ship by the quay, its skeleton masts and rigging wallowing against an overcast sky. The ladies were dismounted and handed over to the sailors, and half the men-at-arms-turned their horses and clattered back the way they had come. At the top of the companionway Isabel drew back and whispered to the Countess, ‘Is this necessary, madame? Could it not be done in England?’

  ‘No, my daughter. We must do your father’s bidding.’ Isabel sighed and descended.

  The crossing was a repetition of that earlier voyage and, owing to Anne’s extreme tiredness, scarcely more distinct. But thanks to that same fatigue she slipped at length from the nightmare into a dream of a drowsy day in the country, relaxing to the easy rhythm of an ambling horse, or was it the branch of a beech tree, rocking above the lazy swell of the summer hills? Someone stood at the foot of the trunk, she knew, though she could not see, guarding her eyrie from the world of men. But the branch lurched violently, and she clutched at it to keep herself from falling into the ocean of leaves below, and it was Isabel, shaking her and saying, ‘Wake up. We’re here.’

  ‘Where?’ Snatched roughly from the cool green forest, Anne’s bewilderment was complete.

  ‘In Calais. Where I’m to be married.’

  It was in Calais, the assertively English little outpost on the borders of France and Flanders, that Isabel was to wed her Duke. He was not there; the governor told them that his grace would be arriving shortly with the Earl and the Archbishop of York. Meanwhile, Isabel paced the chambers of Calais castle between fittings for her wedding dress. All the seamstresses in the town were commandeered into service in sewing thousands of pearls on to several yards of white silk, but theirs were the only busy hands. Everyone else sweltered in the flat heat from the marshes, and strained their eyes for a sail on the horizon. Anne was laid low with an ague the day after their landing.

  She was out of bed, though not recovered, when two ships stood into the harbour, one flying the Neville saltire and the other the arms of England. Once the three lords were ashore there was no more idleness. A maelstrom of organisation swept the town: streets were hung with branches and strewn with straw, soldiers polished their pikes and women scuttled about with armfuls of freshly-starched linen. It was not the grand wedding in Westminster Abbey, acclaimed by court and country, that Isabel had yearned for. However much effort was put into its public trappings, it was a rushed fugitive affair. Isabel took comfort in her wedding gown and the attentiveness of her bridegroom. In her eyes the Duke of Clarence was even more beautiful and eligible now than he had been two years before. The spice of opposition which must have led to this runaway ceremony had only increased his glamour. She wept while she was being dressed, and wept again as she walked through the town to the church of St Mary Virgin and was cheered by the inhabitants who remembered the bride as a little girl in Calais a decade ago.

  But the appearance of the young man who was waiting for her at the altar stopped her tears and her breath as well. George of Clarence might be taking a wife in defiance of royal will, but for this occasion he looked no less than the King’s brother and heir presumptive to the throne of England. Against the candles and the thin daylight filtering through the stained glass, he was the sun among stars. His purple and gold gown was encrusted with jewels that gleamed and winked as if he were alive with light. Bareheaded, his blond hair was as burnished as a halo. The sun and the moon, thought Anne, when Isabel in her pearly white silk took her place beside him. He made his responses in confident tones which rang boldly beyond the small congregation into the dark places of the church; hers were murmured so that even her uncle the Archbishop, who was officiating, had to incline towards her to catch them. Just as they were pronounced man and wife Isabel glanced up shyly for the first time at her husband, but he did not look down.

  Then there was the nuptial mass, and Anne became less and less sure of what was happening around her. She was not yet well, and long standing and the heat were taking their toll. Although there was a pillar next to her which she used surreptitiously for support, she sensed that her father was casting a stony eye on her and cursing the daughter who was always a broken reed at the most inconvenient moments. The Earl grew progressively less substantial, while over her head she was more and more conscious of a brooding threat. What it was she did not dare to know, but above the pageantry and the screen of candles it was surely there. The pillar was clammy beneath her fingers; that too disappeared up into the realms of darkness, and suddenly it all flooded back upon her, the hovering dead-eyed demons of her childhood. Wanting nothing more than to cower to the ground and hide herself from them, she clamped herself more firmly to her support and tried to repeat the words of the litany. Somewhere far away

  - in heaven, probably - a choir of cherubim were singing the Amen.

  ‘O Blessed Mary and Holy Anne and Holy Anthony save me,’ she was gabbling in her head. There was a movement beside her and the Countess of Warwick was receding in the wake of a glittering procession. Bravely Anne let go of the pillar and plunged after her. Fresh air was blowing from the open door, the warm moist air of a July morning. The demons retreated, whimpering soundlessly, and she could see in front of her the tall mitre of the Archbishop and the back of her father’s close-cropped dark head. As she passed through the west door a last claw of the terror struck at her from above, but so feebly that she was able defiantly to raise her eyes. It was there, gaping at her grotesquely from the parapet: a weathered old gargoyle with moss growing out of its mouth. Anne grinned back.

  The feasting went on for the rest of the day, and although the company was comparatively small for a Neville celebration, they made up for it with abundant victuals and a great deal of noise. Anne managed to miss a little of it by slipping away on the pretext of relieving herself and taking refuge in the chapel. She looked at the angels painted on the walls, remembering them now as old allies against the devils in the church roof. They were not really very beautiful, and the gold of their wings was flaking away in some places. The Duke of Clarence was far more splendid, but she decided that she would be easier in heaven in the company of these shabby angels than with the magnificence of seraphs like her brother-in-law. For a blessed twenty minutes she watched the pools of multi-coloured sunlight slide peacefully across the floor, and then she went back.

  The presiding archangel was on his feet, proposing the fiftieth health of the day to his father-in-law the great Earl of Warwick. It was not as coherent as the first had been; his face was flushed, the smooth crown of hair disordered, and the rich chain of suns and roses hung crooked around his shoulders. Although she had been reared on them, Anne was frightened and repelled by the latter end of these banquets. Usually the ladies withdrew before they became too rowdy, but since this was a wedding breakfast the bride and her mother and sister were expected to sit it out. Isabel, indeed, seemed to have no objection to the conviviality which was after all for her benefit; she was giggling and nearly as scarlet as her husband. The pearl-strewn bodice of her gown was now speckled also with gravy and wine. Returning from the tranquillity of the chapel, seeing it as an outsider, Anne felt that it was all wrong. The courtly summer wooing by the Avon should not have led to this.

  It finished late in the evening, and she was too weary to form any opinions, negative or positive, about the wild bedding ceremony that was its culmination. Her own bed, which throughout her life she had shared with Isabel, should have been a haven. But the young lady-inwaiting who was supplying Isabel’s place was a restless sleeper, and Anne spent most of the remainder of the night fighting off the prodigal limbs of her new bedfellow.

  Despite her sister’s elevation to the coveted state of matrimony Anne expected a full account of it at an early hour. But there was no message from Isabel when she r
ose, late and queasy, and no sign of her in their mother’s chamber where they generally spent their mornings. The Countess was working placidly at her embroidery, and her attendants sat about on their cushions, taciturn and rather the worse for last night’s wear. When Anne had saluted her mother and taken the stool at her side she ventured to ask where Isabel was. Several of the ladies tittered, and their mistress turned a cool disapproving glance upon them before saying, ‘Her grace your sister is keeping her chamber today.’

  ‘Is she sick, madame?’ It was an innocent question, but there were more titters, and this time the censorious glance was for her too.

  ‘She is no longer your equal, Anne. You must not question what she does.’ The rebuke brought the sting of tears to Anne’s eyes; the Countess so rarely reproved her, yet she had not meant to pry. And there was also something else: a premonition of rejection. As soon as courtesy allowed she went to look for Isabel. Mounting the stairs towards her sister’s new chamber as Duchess of Clarence, she told her anxious heart that even if she were married and a duchess, she would still want someone to boast to about the felicities of a dream come true. But the attendant in the ante-room said that her grace was receiving nobody today.

  ‘If his grace is with her I will come back later.’ Anne blushed a little at her indelicacy and made to retreat.

  ‘His grace went out some hours ago.’

  ‘Then I’m sure my sister would want to see me.’

  ‘Her grace is resting, lady. She gave strict instructions that she was not to be disturbed on any account.’ This was Ankarette Twynyho, a woman who had been with them at Middleham, who had slept on the truckle bed across their door while Isabel whispered secrets in the dark. Her face was blank and unyielding. Anne went up to her.

  ‘Ankarette, is my sister well?’

  The expression softened at her appeal. ‘You’d best go away, lady,’ she answered more kindly. ‘She’s not who she was.’ With a heavy heart Anne took her advice.

  The lady-in-waiting was right. When Isabel appeared in public the next day she was far from the emotional bride who had wept and giggled her way through her wedding. Serious, distant, she applied herself to her needlework with uncommon diligence, and took no part in the gossip which had been the mainspring of her day. The Countess was visibly pleased by the change in her daughter; this, evidently, was how a sober and godly matron should behave - as she did herself. But Anne was unhappy about it, and not only because the bond of confidence between the sisters was clearly severed. Isabel should have been bubbling with high spirits; she was not one to hide her feelings. Whether flying into a temper, sulking or purring with pleasure, except in her father’s presence when she was as subdued as all his womenfolk, her moods had always been indulged. She must indeed have taken her marriage vows to heart so to suppress her inclinations.

  Her husband was not there to animate her. He had not been seen in the fortress since the morning after the wedding. Probably he had ridden off with Warwick to inspect the outlying fort of Guisnes. They returned together at any rate, towards evening, the Earl’s armoured train enlivened by the bright trappings of the Duke’s followers. Anne was on her way to the great hall for supper when she encountered a man in the passage, who pressed back against the wall to let her pass. He must have known who she was, since he bowed to her. She would scarcely have noticed him, but for the way in which he placed his fingers to his heart as he did so, which vibrated a chord softly in her mind. Not liking to look back, she went on her way, wondering where she had seen him before.

  At table Clarence was already seated next to his wife. He leaned towards her, talking behind his hand in the intimate way which Anne recognised from his wooing days. But Isabel’s response was subtly different. Instead of openly drinking in his conversation she seemed to be holding herself back, as if fascinated against her will; there was no more coquetry. Of course, reflected Anne, she does not need it now; the prize is won. All the same, she wished that Isabel would talk to her.

  The musicians began to play in the gallery, and at once she remembered the identity of the man in the passage. A spring evening at Middleham, French troubadours putting away their instruments with delicate care, and her father’s voice saying, ‘Know Bertrand de Josselin again, my lord. He is worth the acquaintance.’ And then that strange sidelong courtesy and the flick of the viol bow to his chest. Richard had been standing beside him, she recalled with a pang, dwarfed by the angular Frenchman. It had been his last week in Wensleydale. She had always foolishly blamed de Josselin for taking him away. Anne came back to the cramped hall of Calais Castle, where the Duke of Clarence gestured and joked between mouthfuls, and gulped down her homesickness. De Josselin was not playing tonight. His image plucked at the edge of her thoughts for a while, and then let go.

  Warwick and Clarence were in Calais for only three more days. Within a fortnight of their arrival they were embarking again. The garrison and citizens were down at the harbour to give them godspeed. It was no secret, in Calais at any rate, that their small fleet carried what was virtually an invasion force. King Edward had abused the sacred trust bestowed upon him by the Earl of Warwick. He gave too much ear to the evil counsellors who had led him out of the paths of virtue. It was the mission of the great Earl, and of his son-in-law the Duke of Clarence, to remove the corrupting influences and bring the King back to his duty. That was what they said in Calais, which had remained independent under the protection of Warwick for more than a decade.

  The wind was blowing auspiciously from the south-east, tossing the sea into little waves beyond the harbour wall. It was a fine day, and everything was broken up into glittering flecks of light, dancing on the waves and the sails and pennants, the helmets and lances of the soldiers. The leave-takings were rapid and then the leaders of the expedition mounted the gangplank to scattered cheering from the quay and the deck. At once the sailors cast off and the flagship was drifting away before the sails were fully hoisted. Warwick and Clarence stood side by side for a moment at the stern, an ill-assorted couple, acknowledging their send-off. The Earl went forward, leaving his sonin-law to blow kisses at the group of ladies on the quay with their skirts and head-dresses flapping unruly about them. He shouted something which the wind blew playfully towards them before tearing it to shreds. It sounded like, ‘I’ll bring you back a crown.’

  Then the ships were out of the haven and prancing over the choppy sea towards a distant line of blue which was the English coast. The crowd was dispersing, with minds already on dinner. Warwick’s family stood for a little longer, while the fleet became part of the shifting pattern of sunlight and ocean. The Countess’s attitude, hands clasped limply before her, as usual gave nothing away. And Isabel, though one hand was keeping her veil from following her husband out to sea, was almost as impassive as her mother. There had been no tears, not even refined demonstrations of grief at the parting, only a sort of suppressed eagerness.

  Anne had spared a puzzled thought for her sister at the time, but now she too was gazing after the ships, with a little ache of worry at her heart. It was obvious even to one as uninformed as she that Warwick had turned against his erstwhile pupil.

  Clarence had bound himself firmly to the Earl’s cause by his marriage. But the King’s youngest brother must have chosen differently. Of course, the evil counsellors that people talked about so glibly were the Woodvilles, the Queen’s acquisitive relatives. After they had been reduced to their proper positions all would be well again. Yet the prospect of her father and her cousin Richard being, however nominally, in opposite camps made Anne apprehensive. At the first opportunity she burned candles to both their patron saints for concord.

  4: ORDEAL BY WATER

  The news was good. The rebel Robin of Redesdale turned out to be loyal to Warwick; he won a battle on his behalf which helped persuade the King that he would be more secure in the

  great Earl’s custody. Soon afterwards Warwick succeeded in lopping off two branches of the Queen’s prolific family
tree: her father and one of her brothers were beheaded outside Coventry. It was reported that England was restless, but no doubt the country would settle down contentedly as soon as the Earl and the King had firmly re-established their alliance. Anne sat over her embroidery, willing someone to say that the Duke of Gloucester had been instrumental in bringing his two kinsmen together. But he was not mentioned. With things going so well, the refugees in Calais were expecting daily a summons home. August turned into September, and nobody came to fetch them.

  They were bored. Their quarters in the fortress were cramped, and with their hurried departure from Warwick there had been no time to bring the usual comforts which softened an itinerant life. Calais offered no diversions; it was a garrison town full of soldiers and wool merchants, and the little community was thrown back on its own company. Backbiting, squabbling and agues proliferated as news from England decreased. Anne was not involved. No one bothered to quarrel with her, and besides she had another preoccupation to keep her from boredom.

  To her surprise, after a few weeks of sleeping in solitary state, Isabel had come back to share her bed. She offered no explanation; her possessions appeared one evening and she followed them, with a glance at her sister which challenged her to ask the reason. Of course she did not, and for several nights Isabel addressed hardly a word to her. Her restraint, however, was showing signs of cracking. In public she was the Duchess of Clarence, but in private a light of superiority was beginning to gleam in her eye. It meant that confidences were in the offing, and Anne’s spirits lifted a little. Although she was not excessively curious about her sister’s innermost secrets, it was a comfort to be needed again after her time in the wilderness. At first it was only sighs and broken remarks which she could not fathom at all, hinting at something momentous growing out of past trial. Then evasive promises to tell, ‘When I’m sure - if you swear not to utter a word until I give you leave.’ Anne swore, and was patient - despite a suspicion that Isabel would really love to have the information coaxed out of her.