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

by Lesley Nickell

  Towards the end of August she could contain herself no longer. Dismissing Ankarette, who was her personal attendant, she gave Anne a private audience.

  ‘I’ve decided to tell you before it’s announced to our lady mother. The person who should properly know first isn’t here, and so I’ve chosen you,’ she said magnanimously. Anne murmured her thanks. ‘It’s a great blessing, and proves how right my lord our father was to make the alliance. Now we must pray to the Holy Virgin to bring me safely through the months of waiting and do my duty to his grace my husband and our people.’ Her speech was intended to whip up her audience’s anticipation to a frenzy, but Anne was staring at her solemnly, quite at sea among the allusions and pious sentiments. ‘Can’t you guess?’ Isabel abandoned her attitude and nudged her sister’s arm impatiently.

  ‘No, madame.’

  ‘Oh, you’re so stupid! Don’t you notice anything?’ Anne shook her head. ‘I felt very dizzy the other morning and I’m sure Ankarette nearly guessed. I suppose I shall start being sick soon and it will be most unpleasant, but with many women it doesn’t last long and anyway it’s better than.... Oh, Anne, I’m with child. The Duke of Clarence’s son. The King’s nephew and perhaps one day the King himself.’

  She was talking too much to see that Anne had paled, more taken aback by the news than Isabel could have expected. Indeed she had had no inkling, because it had never occurred to her that it might happen. Mothers were other people, occasional ladies-in-waiting whose gowns bulged more and more grotesquely over the months and who would disappear for a time, to reappear perhaps plump, but a more normal shape, and resume their cushions and their embroidery. Once or twice a lady had not returned, and the remaining attendants crossed themselves and muttered, ‘God rest her soul,’ and Anne knew that she was dead. She did not want that to happen to Isabel. She looked at her fearfully, seeing with sudden clarity the slim curve of her sister’s body as she reclined on the bed, the grey eyes bright with satisfaction.

  ‘But, Isabel, it’s dangerous,’ she whispered. ‘You might die.’ Isabel frowned. It was not a reaction she expected or liked.

  ‘I might. It’s in God’s hands,’ she responded sharply. ‘But He won’t let me. Isn’t it obvious that heaven favours me? It’s very rare for a woman to conceive in only four nights of marriage. My lord will be overwhelmed when he hears.’ Her voice was turning querulous and Anne was ashamed of her lack of enthusiasm.

  ‘Of course he will. I’m very glad for you, and I’m sure it will be safe really.’ Trying to make amends, Anne put her arms round her in an unpractised gesture of affection, and kissed her cheek. ‘It’s bound to be a son.’ That was what women always said to each other, and it pleased Isabel too. Yet as she repeated it Anne wondered whether people had said it to their mother the Countess while she was carrying them.

  Quite mollified, Isabel yawned, and leaned towards her sister confidentially. ‘It’s a blessing in more ways than one,’ she said darkly. ‘Being a wife is not as easy as you imagine.’ Anne did not intend to dispute it, but Isabel went on, ‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly tell you why. You’re too young to understand.’ And she called Ankarette back to make her ready for bed.

  All the same, she did tell her, and Anne learned by degrees what had changed the Lady Isabel into the Duchess of Clarence. The painful and messy business of the wedding night, with a husband half drunk and not over-gentle; the assault on her modesty which had not improved on repetition. She had been totally unprepared for it, and even at a distance of two months her physical revulsion remained. Her pregnancy was a reprieve. For nearly a year she would be free from the demands of the Duke who, she had discovered, was not only beautiful and rich and heir presumptive to the throne, but also a man.

  Confused and distressed, Anne listened to her. She was no longer reassured by sharing the elder girl’s secrets. The nightly revelations were giving her glimpses of a world which was strange and disturbing to her. Ankarette had been right when she said that Isabel was not what she had been. The old terms of intimacy in which they had discussed George’s courtship were impossible; there was a barrier between them, the barrier erected by experience.

  Isabel refrained from revealing her condition for as long as she could, hoping that Warwick and Clarence would return in time to join their triumph with hers. But by the third month the signs were unmistakable, and she told her mother. One of the consequences was that she was removed from Anne’s chamber and sent back to her own. The taboos and rituals surrounding pregnancy took her over, and once more her way of life separated her from her sister.

  Something had gone wrong in England. There were no definite tidings, certainly no reports of resounding victory for the Earl’s cause. In November they were sent for and crossed the Channel, fortunately in a flat calm. Southern England, as they travelled to Warwick, appeared to be quiet; the King was back in London and the Queen with him. Nothing seemed to be different. It was cold at Warwick; the great chambers, unoccupied since summer, were unaired and dank. Fingers and toes frozen during the journey thawed out very slowly as the servants humped logs up the narrow stairs to feed the freshly lighted fires.

  There was still a dearth of news. When the Earl arrived, he was not in the best of tempers. It was never his custom to shout or make any demonstrations of a bad humour, yet from his silence at table, and the long hours he spent closeted with his captains, the household knew and trembled. Isabel’s announcement fell on rather stony ground. She was recompensed, however, when Clarence joined them some days later. His reaction was everything she had wished for, and in public too. For a while, blushing and glancing at him sidelong through her lashes, Isabel reverted to the coquetry of their wooing days.

  It was from him, via his wife, that they learned what had happened during the past four months. Despite being at one stage completely in Warwick’s and Clarence’s power, King Edward had somehow succeeded in outmanoeuvring them and had now basely, George declared, gone back on all his pledges and concessions; the Woodvilles were rampant again, and the country groaned anew beneath their tyranny. The relationship between Clarence and Warwick was under stress. The deference shown by the Earl to his son-in-law was noticeably less, and Clarence did not pay so many fulsome compliments to the Earl. Once the Duke’s voice was heard raised behind closed doors in the great chamber, and on another occasion he stormed out of the castle and was not seen again until the next day. It was, however, with some show of unity that they set off together in December for London.

  Isabel had wept this time, as her husband kissed her and bade her take good care of their son. Under the privilege of her condition she had tried to wheedle George into taking her to court; her perennial dream of taking her place among the greatest ladies in the land would have had an especially rich fulfilment when she was carrying a child so close to the throne in blood. Clarence had refused, reminding her that the Woodville queen had not yet given Edward an heir, saying bluntly that this was no time to flaunt her fruitfulness. So she had to flaunt it at Warwick, which was not nearly so satisfactory. The flowing loose robe of pale green edged with ermine which she wore at Christmas was in fact more than adequate for her barely-thickened figure. She had taken the inconveniences of early pregnancy well, overdramatising only a little, and as her bulk increased, so did her prettiness. Her sister, who had been apprehensive about the alteration of her shape, dismissed her fears and admitted to herself that Isabel had found her vocation in motherhood.

  Unfortunately, her contentment was not mirrored in the country. Its quietness on their return from abroad had been deceptive; unrest was more widespread than they had imagined. So travellers reported, stopping at the castle and exchanging gossip for a night’s lodging. And wherever trouble broke out, there was the Earl of Warwick, with or without the Duke of Clarence.

  ‘If only the King would give rightful honour to our father and his grace my husband,’ sighed Isabel, shaking her head and patting her belly, ‘there would be peace again.’ Her ladies murmured agre
ement over their tapestry work. Once more the castle drawbridge was up, and the portcullis down, all day as well as at night. Very occasionally, as winter dragged to a close and Isabel grew, one or other of the lords would come for a brief stay and be off again, leaving uncertainty in his wake. The situation flared into open warfare when, on St Gregory’s Day, King Edward defeated one insurgency so decisively that all the leather jacks of the rebels were abandoned in the flight, giving the battle the derisory name of ‘Lose-coat Field’. Not that the household at Warwick were derisive; rather to Anne’s puzzlement they deplored the victory and lamented the King’s execution of the leader. Clarence and Warwick were in arms; that much was certain. But whom they meant to fight, whether the rebels or the King, was not clear. Somewhere to the north at least three armies manoeuvred, and perhaps not even their generals knew what they intended to do.

  Anne was experiencing again the constant queasiness which had darkened her first year at Warwick, when she was only four and Edward was fighting for his throne. She dreaded going to bed, because the rush of the Avon in spate could have been the hoofbeats of a thousand armed men. Her dreams were made hideous by a huge figure in golden armour and a crowned helm who strode through the closed door of her chamber and stood above her, mailed fists on his hips, roaring with silent laughter at her terror. Behind him were others, terribly familiar, who rocked with echoing laughter and beyond them was someone else. She could hardly distinguish him, motionless and dark in the hateful brightness, yet if she could make him hear she would be safe. But her efforts to cry out were drowned by the soundless mirth, and he faded away, unheeding. Then she was awake, bolt upright in a clammy cold bed, with the weir thundering under the window.

  Only in the chapel did she feel at all secure. She had learned the rules of sanctuary, and was reasonably confident that if the King’s troops did take the castle, they would not dare actually to drag her out of her refuge. So she spent a good deal of her time there, kneeling at her prie-dieu, calmed by the red glow of the lamp before the Host and the lingering sweetness of incense. The saints, too, in their niches and windows, she recognised from Middleham: St Jerome with his lion, St Barbara with her book, St Agnes with her lamb. They gave her welcome and a sense of belonging. Her confessor was impressed by her piety. Finding her there once, he remarked that she might prove to have a vocation, and it was a pity that my lord Earl would not consider it.

  Rude hands reached into the depths of her sleep and dragged her into wakefulness. A steely dawn was edging between the shutters, and the chamber was full of candlelight and agitated women. They hustled her out of bed and into her warm travelling clothes, their fingers clumsy with haste.

  ‘What is it? What’s happened?’ Dazed and passive, Anne submitted to their ministrations, her questions lost in the muffled chaos of beds being stripped and things being thrown into chests, and women milling about aimlessly and getting in the way of others. She could smell disaster on the cold air, and flight. In their haste and her bemusement, they were outside the door before she remembered her pendant. ‘I must go back. I’ve forgotten something.’

  ‘There’s no time, lady. My lord said half an hour.’

  ‘I must.’ Anne turned and slipped past her escort before they could stop her. The thought of leaving her treasure behind to the mercy of whatever menace was descending on the castle brought her heart lurching to life. She seized the small box, stowed it under her cloak, and returned to her ladies, who were standing irresolutely where she had left them.

  The inner bailey was pandemonium. Soldiers carrying weapons and pieces of armour were everywhere, colliding with servants staggering under chests and bundles. Packhorses tossed their heads nervously as destriers were led, sidling and whinnying, in all directions. In the leaden half-light, streaked here and there with fading torch flames, it was as if someone had disturbed a giant ant-heap. With relief Anne saw her father, stationed at the top of the steps to the great hall. He was directing operations with the cool authority which he always showed at times of crisis. His riding boots were spattered to the thigh with foam and mud. Anne gravitated towards him, the only fixed point in a seething world, and waited behind him for orders, hugging the rescued box to her stomach. In between shouting instructions for a fresh horse to a groom and despatching a page on an errand to the kitchens, the Earl caught sight of her.

  ‘Ah, you’re first. Are you well?’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  ‘Good. You shall ride with one of the gentlemen.’ Then he turned away and went back to more important business.

  Before long the Countess appeared, followed by Isabel and her husband. Clarence, who was as travel-stained as his father-in-law, was arguing with Isabel. ‘It would be madness for you to stay here. Edward’s troops are on our heels.’

  ‘And what of travelling in my condition? That would be madness too. I would rather trust myself to the King. He is my brother-in-law.’

  ‘And I am his brother - and see how he has used me!’

  ‘He wouldn’t harm a lady. If he were to protect me until the child is born -’

  ‘My child, Isabel. Do you think he would spare a possible heir to his throne?’

  ‘What are you saying?’ Isabel’s cry of alarm was reinforced by a shocked exclamation from her mother.

  ‘Enough!’ Warwick rounded sharply on his divided family. ‘What’s the matter?’ Before his stern enquiry Isabel dropped her head, fingers twisting before her distended belly; Clarence met his gaze with a faint sneer.

  ‘Her grace declines to accompany us,’ he said sarcastically.

  ‘I’ll not have that tone of speech,’ said the Earl, and Clarence swung away, scowling at the reproof. ‘Isabel, don’t be foolish. Your place is with your husband. You’ll be quite secure in a litter.’ Leaving her on the verge of tears, Warwick strode off energetically to check the loading of a baggage wagon, and muttered as he passed the Countess, ‘Those girls have no stamina.’ Clarence went after him with a black look at his wife, and the women watched them go in chastened silence.

  As he had whipped his family into line, so Warwick tackled the organisation of a household on the edge of panic flight into an orderly retreat. It was not yet full day when the cavalcade was ready to leave. There was none of the ceremony which usually attended the departure of the Earl of Warwick from his principal seat; only a group of the attendants who were being left behind clustering anxiously outside the great hall, and the grating of the portcullis being lowered as the last horse crossed the drawbridge. No cheering crowds lined the streets of the town to hold up babies for a glimpse of the great Earl; a few citizens, abroad early, turned curiously to stare at their lord clattering by in haste beneath the dead March sky.

  During their wait in the bailey Anne had contrived to transfer her pendant to her neck, abandoning the box which she could not carry on horseback. Now it hung where Richard had first placed it, moving against her chest with the rhythm of the horse. The irony of the situation had not escaped her: the donor of this gift so lovingly preserved was even now at their backs with the King and an army, pursuing them as declared traitors. This did not upset her as much as the realisation, a few miles south of Warwick, that she had not brought Kat with her. It was the first thing that he had given her, the first symbol of the pact between them which had been sealed with the blessings of St Anthony and St Anne three years later on the slopes of the old castle. She had given up cuddling it at night a few years ago, but had always kept it under her pillow, to touch whenever she was lonely or miserable. In the confusion of their sudden migration it must have been shaken out with the tumbled bedclothes, and fallen into an obscure corner. She would not see Kat again. As they rode on her loss and guilt weighed more and more on her mind, tugging it back to Warwick.

  There was little to distract her in the company and surroundings. The hills of Warwickshire and Gloucestershire crawled past, brown and grey and barren. Skeleton trees stood rigid against the overcast sky, as if spring would never happen aga
in. Oppressed by the weather and their danger, nobody was inclined to conversation, much less to the singing which had serenaded their flight to Calais last summer for Isabel’s wedding. The Duchess of Clarence herself lay fearfully in her litter, clutching at the curtains or her stomach, moaning constantly that she was sure she would fall into labour at any moment with the roads so bad.

  They headed south-west, and on the fourth evening they skirted Bristol to stop at an inn nearby. While someone enquired for a ship the travellers snatched what sleep they could; outriders had reported the royal army to be less than three days’ march behind them, and they were hindered by the slow-moving litter, so they dared not take long rests. No ship was forthcoming, and about midnight they set off again into an unseen drizzle. The rain did not cease. Clouds were rolling low over the Mendips when dawn came, and the tor of Glastonbury was shrouded from sight. The roads turned to a morass, and the riders were soaked as much from mud thrown up by the horses’ hoofs as by the downpour. Anne was so tired and chilled that she no longer had any interest in the journey. When Isabel whispered seditiously that it would be a good thing if the King did catch up with them, she silently agreed.